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ADDRESSES  AND  SERMONS, 


DELIVERED  DURING  A  VISIT 
TO  THE  UNITED  STATES  AND  CANADA 
IN  1878. 


ARTHUR  PENRHYN  "STANLEY,  D.D. 

Dean  of  Westminster. 


THIRD  EDITION. 


MACMILLAN  &  CO. 
1 88 1. 


I 

I 


PREFACE. 


I  have  been  asked  by  my  kind  friends  in  America 
to  leave  with  them  a  record  of  the  utterances  which, 
whether  in  the  reception  of  their  generous  hospitalities 
or  in  the  more  solemn  form  of  addresses  from  the 
pulpit,  have  been  drawn  from  me  during  my  brief 
journey  through  the  United  States  and  Canada.  It 
will  be  evident  that  the  speeches  delivered  on  the 
social  occasions  which  led  to  them  were  sometimes 
entirely  unpremeditated,  and  always  deficient  in  that 
preparation  which  I  could  have  wished.  But  as 
they  truly  expressed,  in  however  imperfect  a  form, 
the  feelings  inspired  by  the  new  experiences  with 
which  my  rapid  survey  of  American  life  for  the  first 
time  brought  me  into  contact,  I  have  not  scrupled 
to  recall  them.  Some  of  these  are  reproduced  from 
the  reports,  more  or  less  exact,  of  the  American 
journals.     In  two   instances  (the  addresses  to  the 


PREFACE. 


Episcopal  Clergy  of  Boston  and  of  New  York)  no 
report  was  given,  and  what  is  here  printed  can  but 
represent  the  substance  so  far  as  it  was  retained  by 
memory. 

The  Addresses,  as  will  be  seen,  were  delivered 
to  very  various  audiences,  some  of  them  consisting 
chiefly  of  the  great  communions  of  the  Presbyterians, 
Congregationalists,  Methodists,  and  Baptists,  which 
have  played  so  large  a  part  in  the  religious  develop- 
ment of  the  American  people.  The  Sermons,  on  the 
other  hand,  were  all  delivered  in  the  Protestant  Epis- 
copal Church.  The  limitations  of  time  were  of  them- 
selves quite  sufficient  to  preclude  any  attempt  at  wider 
ministrations,  and  the  liberality  with  which  the  various 
sections  of  that  Church  offered  to  me  the  opportunity 
of  speaking  from  its  pulpi.s  to  the  people  of  America, 
rendered  any  further  effort  unnecessary. 

Two  additions  I  have  ventured  to  make  to  the 
Sermons  preached  in  the  United  States.  One  is  that 
which  was  delivered  in  the  Cathedral  of  Quebec.  The 
common  interest  which  attaches  to  the  whole  Northern 
Continent  will  enable  the  reader  to  enter  into  the 
grateful  farewell  which  that  Sermon  was  intended  to 
express  to  the  departing  Governor,  who  has  done  so 
much  for  Canada,  as  well  as  the  respectful  greeting 


PREFACE. 


to  the  coming  Governor,  from  whose  peculiar  vantage- 
ground  so  much  is  expected.  I  have  also  added, 
as  a  preface  to  the  whole  collection  of  Sermons,  the 
substance  of  one  preached  in  England,  which  indicates 
in  a  more  systematic  form  than  was  possible  in  these 
discourses  the  general  conditions  of  religious  inquiry, 
applicable  equally  to  the  theological  students  of  both 
countries.  It  also  bears  directly  on  the  subject  of  the 
two  last  discourses  in  New  York. 

I  commend  these  pages  to  the  indulgence  of  the 
American  public,  with  the  humble  hope  that  they 
may  tend  in  some  measure  to  forward  those  higher 
principles  of  Christian  civilisation,  on  which  the  future 
progress  alike  of  the  British  Empire  and  of  the  United 
States  so  largely  depends. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


ADDRESSES  : 

PAGE 

Salem— "Our  Old  Homes"    .....  3 

Boston— Liberal  Theology  8 

Baltimore— Johns  Hopkins  University.  .  .  16 
Irvington^  -Reply  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Adams  .  .  19 
New  York — An  American  Scholar      ...  23 

„  John  Wesley  34 

„          Reply  at  The  Century  Club  .      .  49 
Reply  to  the  Baptist  Ministers     .  56 
The  Prospects  of  the  Church  of 
England  60 

SERMONS : 

Preface— On  the  Conditions  of  Religious  Inquiry  71 
Boston — The  East  and  the  West  ....  96 
Philadelphia— The  Holy  Angels  .  .  .  .115 
New  York— The  Perplexities  of  Life  .  .  .133 
Quebec— The  Uses  of  Conflict  .  .  .  .  151 
Stockbridge,  Mass.— "There  is  Nothing"  .  .  172 
New    York— The    Unity    and    Diversity  of 

Christendom  184 

„  The  Nature  of  Man  ....  200 

K  The  Nature  of  God  .      .      .  .228 


ADDRESSES 


ADDRESSES. 


L 

SPEECH  IN  REPLY  TO  THE  TOAST  OF 
"OUR  OLD  HOMES," 

AT  THE  BANQUET  AT  SALEM,  MASSACHUSETTS,  SEPT.  19,  1878, 
ON  THE  OCCASION  OF  THE  TWO  HUNDRED  AND  FIFTIETH 
ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE  LANDING  OF  GOVERNOR  ENDICOTT. 

Mr.  President  :  You  are  aware  that  I  have  been 
but  two  days  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  I  came 
to  this  country  not  to  speak  but  to  hear,  not  to  teach 
but  to  learn,  and  therefore  you  will  not  expect  me, 
even  if  there  were  not  more  potent  reasons,  to  address 
you  at  present  at  any  length.  But,  after  the  kind 
way  in  which  you  have  proposed  my  health,  after 
the  kind  reception  with  which  I  have  been  met, 
after  the  tribute  which  I  feel  is  given  in  my  humble 

B  2 


4 


ADDRESSES.— SALEM. 


honour  to  my  own  country,  I  cannot  refrain  from  a  few 
words  to  express  the  deep  gratification  which  I  have 
had  at  being  present,  under  the  kind  protection  of  my 
ancient  friend,  Mr.  Winthrop,  and  my  new  friend, 
the  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  on  this  auspicious 
occasion.  You  propose  "our  old  homes."  Our  old 
homes.  It  has  often  struck  me  that  I  should  almost 
have  wished  to  have  been  born  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  as  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  in  order 
to  have  felt  the  pleasure  which  I  have  seen  again 
and  again  in  the  faces  of  Americans  as  they  have 
witnessed  their  old  homes  on  the  other  side  of  the 
ocean.  It  has  been  my  constant  happiness  to  receive 
them  in  that  oldest  of  all  the  old  homes,  whether 
of  Old  England  or  New  England,  Westminster 
Abbey.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  me  to  think  that  those 
who  cross  from  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  may  find 
something  in  that  old  home  which  may  remind  them 
of  their  new  homes  here.  You  may  see  on  the  walls 
of  Westminster  Abbey  a  tablet,  placed  in  that  church 
by  the  State  of  Massachusetts  itself,  in  that  dubious 
period  over  which  the  eloquent  orator  of  to-day 
passed  with  so  tender  and  delicate  a  step.  And 
you  will  see  the  temporary  grave  of  your  illustrious 
townsman,  the  munificent  benefactor  of  the  poor  o( 


"our  old  homes:* 


5 


London,  where  his  remains  were  placed  amidst  the 
mourning  of  the  whole  metropolis.  You  will  even  see 
in  a  corner  there,  most  sacred  of  memory,  Boston 
harbour  depicted  with  the  sun  setting  behind  the 
western  world. 

But  as  there  is  a  pleasure  which  Americans  feel 
in  visiting  their  old  home,  there  is  a  pleasure  which 
an  Englishman  feels  when,  after  long  waiting  and 
long  desiring,  he  visits  for  the  first  time  the  shores 
of  this  new  home  of  his  old  race.  You  can  hardly 
imagine  the  intense  curiosity  with  which,  as  he  enters 
Boston  harbour,  he  sees  the  natural  features  opening 
upon  his  view,  of  which  he  has  so  long  read  in 
books,  and  when  he  sees  pointed  out  to  him  name  after 
name  familiar  in  his  own  country.  And  when  I  come 
to  this  celebration,  cold  and  hard  must  be  the  heart 
of  that  Englishman  who  would  not  feel  drawn  to  a 
place  hallowed  by  the  recollection  of  those  Puritan 
fathers  whose  ancestors  were  as  valuable  an  element 
in  our  society  as  they  can  have  been  in  yours.  Long, 
long  ago,  before  I  had  formed  the  design  of  coming 
to  America,  I  had  been  drawn  to  the  city  of  Salem 
as  the  birthplace  of  one  whom  I  may  call  my  friend, 
the  gifted  sculptor,  whose  vigorous  and  vivid  poem 
we  all  heard  with  so  much   pleasure  today,  and 


6  ADDRESSES.— SALEM.  [t 

also  as  the  cradle  of  the  genius  ranking  amongst 
the  first  places  of  the  literature  of  this  age  and 
country,  the  genius  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 

And  listening  to  all  the  marvellous  strains  of 
interest  which  have  gone  through  the  speeches  of 
this  day,  one  point  which  strikes  me  most  forcibly 
is  that  I  am  carried  back  from  these  shores  to  my 
own  country  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago.  I 
doubt  whether  there  is  any  audience  in  England 
which  could  be  equally  impressed  by  any  event  that 
had  taken  place  in  England  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  ago,  with  the  feeling  toward  the  mother  country 
ind  toward  the  societies  of  their  own  country  which 
1  have  seen  throughout  the  proceedings  of  to-day. 
The  foundation  of  Salem  is  indeed  an  event  which 
unites  together  our  old  and  our  new  homes,  and  if 
there  is  a  mixture  of  light  and  shade  in  the  recol- 
lections which  crowd  upon  us,  that  also  is  important 
in  its  relation  to  the  future  development  of  our  race. 
If  in  Salem  we  stand  on  the  grave  of  some  extinct 
beliefs — extinct  and  vanished  away,  as  we  trust,  for 
ever — so  in  Salem  we  cannot  but  look  forward  to 
that  distant  future,  to  the  ages  in  which  no  one  can 
forecast  with  any  certainty  the  destinies  either  of  Europe 
or  America,  but  in  which  we  still  hope  that  our  own 


"OUR  OLD  HOME.V 


7 


English  race  may,  under  the  providence  of  God,  effect 
new  works  and  fulfil  new  hopes  for  the  human  race, 
such  as,  perhaps,  at  present  we  hardly  dare  think  of — 


Tis  not  too  late  to  seek  a  newer  world. 


II. 

THE    PROSPECTS    OF  LIBERAL 
THEOLOGY. 

THE  SUBSTANCE  OF  A  REPLY  AT  A  RECEPTION  OF  THE  CLERGTT 
OF  THE  PROTESTANT  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 
AND  RHODE  ISLAND.  AT  BOSTON,   SEPTEMBER  2^,  1878. 

You  have  asked  me  to  give  a  brief  account  of  the 
prospects  of  Liberal  Theology  in  England.  It  is  not 
altogether  a  view  of  unmixed  rejoicing.  During  the 
last  thirty  years  there  have  been  many  reverses,  on 
which  I  will  not  dwell.  Still,  there  have  been  successes 
achieved  which  justify  us  in  hoping  that,  if  not  now, 
at  any  rate  years  or  generations  hence,  Liberal  Theo- 
logy may  resume  its  natural  ascendency  over  the  minds 
of  educated  men.  By  Liberal  Theology,  I  mean  a 
theology  which,  whilst  comprehending  all  the  whole- 
some elements  of  thought  at  work  in  the  world,  yet 
holds  that  the  Christian  belief  is  large  enough  to  con- 
tain them ;   which  insists  not  on  the  ceremonial,  the 


IT.]    PROSPECTS  OF  LIBERAL  THEOLOGY.  9 


dogmatic,  or  the  portentous,  but  on  the  moral  side 
of  religion  ;  which  insists  on  the  spirit,  not  on  the 
letter — on  the  meaning,  not  on  the  words  —  on 
the  progressive,  not  on  the  stationary  character  of 
Christianity. 

Let  me  take  four  groups  of  instances  in  which 
the  public  opinion  of  the  clerg);  has  been  deeply 
changed  in  this  direction  even  during  the  last  few 
years. 

(1.)  First,  as  regards  the  Bible.  The  crude  notions 
which  prevailed  twenty  years  ago  on  the  subject  of 
inspiration  have  been  so  completely  abandoned,  as  to 
be  hardly  anywhere  maintained  by  theological  scholars. 
Of  the  eleven  thousand  English  clergy  who  set  their 
hands  to  a  declaration  in  favour  of  those  crude 
notions  fifteen  years  ago,  there  are  probably  not  fifty 
who  would  now  do  it  again. 

As  regards  the  interpretation  of  the  sacred  books, 
questions  of  criticism  and  authorship  which  were 
formerly  considered  to  be  entirely  closed  are  now  fully 
and  freely  discussed.  The  non-Pauline  authorship  of 
the  Epistle  to  the~  Hebrews,  which  thirty  years  ago  is 
said  to  have  excluded  a  candidate  from  a  theological 
professorship,  is  now  maintained  by  no  one  of  any 
name  or  fame.     The  second  .Isaiah,  if  not  eo^ally 


10 


A  DDRESSES.  —BOS  TON. 


[H. 


recognised,  can  be  at  any  rate  mentioned  without 
exciting  alarm  or  scandal.  The  composite  character 
of  the  Pentateuch,  in  like  manner,  on  which  the 
Bishop  of  Natal  found  such  extraordinary  difficulty 
in  obtaining  a  patient  hearing,  is  now,  in  principle, 
assumed  almost  as  certain.  The  complexity  of  the 
mutual  relation  of  the  four  Gospels,  although  still 
agitated,  without  arriving,  as  perhaps  we  never  shall 
arrive,  at  any  fixed  solution,  is  yet  so  deeply  im- 
pressed on  the  theological  mind  that  no  scholar  can 
for  the  future  avoid  considering  it.  The  Biblical 
criticism,  begun  so  admirably  at  Oxford  by  Professor 
Jowett,  and  continued  in  a  more  cautious  spirit, 
though  with  more  visible  results,  at  Cambridge,  by 
Professor  Lightfoot,  is  full  of  promise  for  the  future. 

(2.)  Secondly,  as  regards  social  and  ecclesiastical 
questions.  In  spite  of  the  retrograde  influences 
which  have  prevailed  within  or  without  the  Church, 
it  may  be  safely  asserted  that  never  has  the  Liberal 
doctrine  of  the  relations  of  Church  and  State  been 
more  thoroughly  ventilated  than  in  these  later  years. 
The  doctrine  laid  down  by  Hooker,  which  has  always 
more  or  less  animated  the  policy  of  enlightened 
statesmen  and  divines  in  England,  received  a  new 
elucidation  in  the  writings  of  Arnold,  and  has  on 


II.]    PROSPECTS  OF  LIBERAL  THEOLOGY.  n 


the  whole  successfully  held  its  ground.  If  the 
Church  of  England  perishes,  it  will  not  be,  as  might 
have  been  the  case  forty  years  ago,  for  want  of  a 
thoroughly  reasonable  and  philosophical  vindication 
of  the  principles  of  a  National  Church.  The  good 
relations  between  Churchmen  and  Nonconformists, 
though  they  have  lost  much,  have  also  gained  much. 
The  admission  of  the  Dissenters  to  the  universities, 
their  association  with  the  revision  of  the  translation 
of  the  Bible,  are  points  which,  once  achieved,  will 
'not  be  surrendered. 

(3.)  Our  dogmatical  expositions  have  undergone  a 
modification  so  extensive,  as  that  probably  no  treatise 
on  any  of  them  would  now  be  written  with  the 
phraseology  current  forty  years  ago.  The  doctrine  of 
the  Atonement  will  never  again  appear  in  the  crude 
form  common  both  in  Protestant  and  Roman  Catholic 
churches  in  former  times.  The  doctrine  of  the  more 
merciful  view  of  future  punishment,  and  of  the  hope 
of  a  universal  restitution,  has  been  gradually  ad- 
vancing, and  the  darker  view  gradually  receding.  The 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  has  been  more  and  more 
resolved  into  its  Biblical  character;  the  Athanasian 
creed,  by  half  of  the  English  clergy  has  been  con- 
demned, and  by  the  Irish  Church  has  been  silenced  ; 


12  ADDRESSES.— BOSTON.  [n. 

and  though  there  are  many  who  insist  on  retaining 
the  old  repulsive  scholastic  forms,  the  main  stumbling- 
blocks  involved  in  them  have  lost  their  general  interest. 
The  quarrels  about  Predestination  and  Justification, 
which  a  hundred  years  ago  filled  the  whole  mind  of 
the  Scottish  and  English  Nonconformists,  have,  even 
with  them,  almost  disappeared.  The  question  of 
miracles  has  at  least  reached  this  point — that  no  one 
would  now  make  them  the  chief  or  sole  basis  of  the 
evidence  for  religious  truth.  In  this  intermediate 
position  the  contending  parties  may  surely  rest  for  a 
time. 

In  all  these  and  many  like  respects,  Liberal 
Theology,  instead  of  standing  on  the  merely  apologetic 
ground  of  defending  itself  against  the  attacks  of  its 
assailants,  ought  itself  to  claim  an  orthodoxy  (if  we 
like  so  to  call  it),  a  Biblical,  Evangelical,  Catholic 
character,  which  its  opponents  have  never  reached. 
On  many  of  the  essential  doctrines  of  Christianity, 
the  universality  of  the  Divine  Love,  the^  justification 
of  the  good  heathens,  the  supreme  importance  of 
morality,  the  possibility  of  human  perfection,  the 
divinity  of  conscience,  the  identification  of  the  Church 
with  the  laity,  of  things  secular  and  things  sacred, 
the  Bible  and  the  best  voices  of  Christendom  are  on 


II.]    PROSPECTS  OF  LIBERAL  THEOLOGY.  13 


our  side  and  not  on  theirs;  and  though,  on  account 
of  the  many-sidedness  of  truth,  and  the  imperfection 
of  human  language,  there  is  much  to  be  forgiven 
on  both  sides,  yet,  on  the  whole,  it  is  they,  not  we, 
whose  extravagances  need  to  be  tolerated,  and  whose 
errors  need  to  be  condoned. 

(4-)  The  general  relations  of  Theology  to  Literature 
have  gained  immensely.  In  ecclesiastical  history,  Mil- 
man  and  Lecky,  with  many  lesser  works  on  special 
periods,  have  admirably  filled  the  waste  places. 
Tennyson's  poems  and  Max  Miiller's  researches  are 
a  storehouse  of  wise  theology.  With  all  the  ob- 
jections that  may  be  made  to  Matthew  Arnold,  he 
has— in  his  father's  spirit,  though  in  a  different 
direction — left  an  enduring  mark  in  the  light  he  has 
thrown  not  only  on  the  controversy  with  Puritans, 
but  on  the  importance  of  the  Bible,  and  in  the  call 
to  every  theological  formula  to  cast  off  its  provincial 
and  scholastic  form  and  take  the  literary  and  universal 
form,  which  is  the  test  of  ultimate  permanence. 

One  word  in  conclusion.  Whatever  the  relapses  to 
which  I  referred  at  the  beginning  of  these  remarks, 
whatever  the  failures  in  store  for  us  in  the  future,  I 
am  persuaded  that  what  is  called  Liberal  Theology  is 
the  backbone  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  will  be 


14 


ADDRESSES.— BOSTON. 


["• 


found  to  be  the  backbone  of  its  daughter  Church  in 
America.  The  fact  that  a  large  portion  of  the  world 
and  the  Church  is  against  us  ought  not  to  alter  our 
conviction  that,  in  the  main,  we  are  right.  We  must 
still  hold  by  our  colours.  We  have  made  good  a 
starting-point  for  those  who  come  after  us,  perhaps  in 
the  twentieth  or  the  twenty-first  century,  and  no  deeper 
impression  will  have  been  left  upon  this  age  than  by 
those  who  have  followed  in  the  broad  track  opened 
by  the  great  philosophic  divines  of  the  seventeenth 
century;  an  impress,  it  may  be,  all  the  deeper,  even 
if,  which  I  do  not  venture  to  anticipate,  it  shall  come 
to  pass  that  we  shall  be  remembered  as  the  last  of 
the  Liberal  Theologians,  the  last  of  those  who  in 
England  did  not  despair  of  their  religion  and  their 
Church. 

Of  your  future  in  America,  it  is  not  for  me  to 
speak.  Any  stranger  who  comes  to  your  country  for 
the  first  time  must  be  awestruck  by  the  vastness  of  the 
destiny  before  it.  But,  perhaps,  he  may  be  allowed  to 
express  his  hopes  in  the  form  of  an  earnest  entreaty 
that  you,  the  clergy,  will  remember  the  greatness  of 
your  profession — great  in  itself,  and  great  in  its  rela- 
tion to  the  other  churches  and  communions  around  you ; 
that  you  will  remember  how  much  of  that  greatness 


II.]    PROSPECTS  OF  LIBERAL  T.  JEOLOGY.  15 


belongs  to  the  large  and  liberal  conceptions  of  Chris- 
tianity which,  in  America  as  well  as  in  England,  and 
in  New  England  especially,  have  been  breathed  into 
youi  minds  by  the  genial  influences  of  the  earlier  part 
of  this  century. 

When  I  see  hereafter  in  Westminster  Abbey  the 
memorial  which  in  its  most  beloved  spot  contains  a 
faint  representation  of  Boston  harbour,  when'  I  listen 
there  once  more,  as  I  trust  I  shall,  to  the  eloquent 
voice  which  I  have  already  twice  heard  within  those 
walls,  and  now,  with  renewed  pleasure,  in  Trinity 
Church,  the  scenes  of  this  first  welcome  to  your 
shores  will  recur  with  delight  to  my  thoughts.  May  the 
grateful  sense  of  the  kindness  which  I  have  received 
from  you  shape  itself  into  the  sincere  prayer  that 
God  may  bless  you  with  the  fulness  of  His  blessing. 


TIL 


ADDRESS 

AT  AN   EVENING   MEETING  OF  THE   STUDENTS   OF  THE  JOHNS 
HOPKINS  UNIVERSITY,  BALTIMORE,  SEPTEMBER  30,  l8,3. 

I  am  no  speaker,  but  I  must  return  a  few  words  of 
thanks  for  the  kind  language  with  which  I  have  been 
received.  When  I  see  an  institution  like  this  in  its 
first  beginnings,  I  am  carried  back  to  the  time  when 
my  own  university  in  England  was  begun,  perhaps  a 
thousand  years  ago,  in  the  fabulous  obscurity  of  the  age 
of  Alfred,  or  the  more  recent  historic  times  of  Walter 
of  Merton  or  Devorguilla  of  Bailiol ;  and  I  observe 
the  repetition  of  the  same  yearnings  after  a  distant 
future  of  improvement,  as  those  which  were  before  the 
minds  of  those  old  mediaeval  founders.  The  same  spirit 
is  needed  for  that  improvement  on  this  side  of  the 
ocean  and  on  the  other.     I  am  led  to  think  of  the 


in.]         JOHNS  HOPKINS  UNIVERSITY.  17 


description  given  by  Chaucer,  in  that  inestimable  Pro- 
logue to  the  Canterbury  Tales,  which  I  hope  you  will 
all  read  one  day  or  other,  of  the  Good  Scholar  and 
the  Good  Pastor,  bred  in  Oxford  in  his  time ;  and  I 
see  how,  in  spite  of  all  the  vast  changes  which  have 
passed  over  the  minds  of  men  since  that  age,  the 
same  qualities  are  still  necessary  to  make  a  good  and 
sincere  scholar,  a  good  scientific  student,  an  efficient 
medical  or  legal  adviser,  an  efficient  spiritual  pastor. 
Simplicity,  sincerity,  love  of  goodness,  and  love  of 
truth,  are  as  powerful  and  as  much  needed  in  our 
day  as  they  were  in  the  days  long  ago,  which  formed 
the  great  professions  that  are  still  the  bulwarks  of 
society.  The  President  and  the  Professor  who  have 
spoken  have  both  referred  to  the  influence  of  my 
beloved  teacher  in  former  times — Thomas  Arnold.  The 
lapse  of  years  has  only  served  to  deepen  in  me  the 
conviction  that  no  gift  can  be  more  valuable  than  the 
recollection  and  the  inspiration  of  a  great  character 
working  upon  our  own.  It  is  my  hope  that  you  may 
all  experience  this  at  some  time  of  your  lives  as  I 
have  done.  I  entreat  you  to  cherish  this  hope,  and 
to  remember  that  on  your  making  the  best  of  any  such 
influences,  and  also  of  the  remarkable  resources  provided 
for  you  in  this  noble  institution,  depends  your  use  in 

c 


i8 


ADDRESSES.— BALTIMORE.  \\u. 


life  and  the  effect  which  you  may  produce  on  the  future 
generations  of  this  great  county  There  are  many 
evils,  many  difficulties,  individual  apd  national,  with 
which  you  will  have  to  contend  j  but  it  may  possibly 
cheer  you  in  your  efforts  to  recall  these  words  of  an 
Englishman  who  now  sees  you  for  the  first  time,  and 
who  will  in  all  probability  never  see  you  again.  May 
God  bless  you  all. 


REPLY   TO   A  SPEECH   OF  THE 
REV.  DR.  ADAMS, 


President  of  the  Presbyterian  Union  Seminary  at  New  York, 

AT  THE  HOUSE  OF  CYRUS  W.   FIELD,  ESQ.,  IRVINGTON, 
ON  THE  HUDSON,  OCTOBER  8,  1878. 

There  is  one  criticism  which  Dr.  Adams's  kind  words 
suggest  to  my  mind — namely,  that  Americans  are 
inclined  to  believe  that  Englishmen  have  the  same 
extraordinary  fluency  of  speech  that  they  have  them- 
selves. But  there  is  one  consolation.  When  on 
the  eve  of  starting  for  America,  I  said  to  a  young 
Englishman  who  had  visited  this  country  that  my 
heart  almost  sank  at  the  prospect  of  so  long  and 
difficult  a  journey,  and  I  asked  him,  "What  do  you 
think  is  the  chief  pleasure  of  travelling  in  America?" 

C  2 


20 


ADDRESSES.— IR  V1NGT0N. 


[IV. 


He  said :  "  The  pleasure  in  travelling  there  is  being 

in  a  foreign  country,  and  yet  being  able  to  talk  in 

our  own  language."     It  is  so.     I  feel  that,  however 

difficult  it  is  to  attempt  to  make  a  speech  in  English 

to  Americans,  it  would  be  much  more  difficult  if  I 

had  to  do  so  in  bad  French  or  worse  Spanish.  The 

relation  between  the  two  countries  has  not  only  been 

cemented  by  the  cable — of  which  there  are  so  many 

natural  mementoes  in  this  house — but  also  by  this 

intercommunity  of  sentiment  and  speech.    As  has  been 

said  by  Keble  : 

Brothers  are  brothers  evermore  ; 
No  distance  breaks  the  tie  of  blood. 

You  remember  the  beautiful  classical  legend  of  Are- 
thusa  plunging  into  the  sea,  and  coming  up  again  in 
the  form  of  the  fountain  at  Syracuse ;  which  was  a 
sign  that  although  the  colonists  of  that  city  had 
bidden  a  final  adieu  to  their  parent  city  in  Greece, 
they  had  not  forgotten  that  they  were  the  same 
people  under  a  different  sky.  I  have  already  found, 
while  travelling  here,  in  every  city  and  town  I  visit, 
under  every  hill  and  in  every  stream,  such  springs  of 
Arethusa  breaking  forth  and  welcoming  me.  Your 
Washington  Irving,  whose  home  was  here  in  this 
neighbourhood,  and  whose   tomb  is   among  you,  is 


iv.]      REPLY  TO  THE  REV.  DR.  ADAMS. 


still,  we  may  consider,  in  Westminster  Abbey,  where 
Poets'  Corner  not  only  comprises  those  whose  bodies  lie 
there,  but  also  in  a  wider  sense  the  distant  poets  and 
authors  who  lie  elsewhere.  He  was  the  first  American 
who  spoke  of  that  venerable  building  with  the  fond 
respect  which  has  now  become  part  of  yourselves; 
he  was  among  the  first  to  create  that  feeling  of 
affection  between  England  and  your  own  country  after 
the  great  separation,  which  must  still  grow  with  the 
growth  of  years,  and  make  the  two  nations  one  in  feeling, 
in  affection,  and  in  hope  for  future  advancement. 

There  seems  to  me  nothing  more  foolish  than  for 
strangers  hastily  to  express  opinions  upon  problems  that 
can  only  be  settled  by  yourselves.  But  one  word  I  may- 
say.  You  are  still  young,  and  will  have  all  the  difficulties 
forced  upon  you  that  we  have  encountered.  You  will, 
however,  have  the  advantage  of  the  experience  of  our 
past  ages  to  assist  you  in  overcoming  them.  The  con- 
ditions of  our  two  countries  are  so  different  that  each 
must  judge  charitably  of  each  other.  There  are,  perhaps, 
no  Scotsmen  here,  but  all  Presbyterians  understand 
Scotch,  and  will  appretiate  what  an  old  minister 
of  the  Church  of  Scotland  said  to  a  young  Scottish 
Dissenter  who  was  full  of  complaints:  "When  your 
lum  (chimney)  has  reeked  as  long  as  ours,  perhaps 


22  ADDRESSES.— IRVINGTON.  [iv. 

it  will  have  as  much  soot;"  and  I  hope  that  your 
chimney-sweepers  may  be  as  effective  as  ours  have 
been.  May  God's  blessing  rest  upon  all  endeavours 
to  bring  together  our  different  Churches  in  unity  of 
spirit,  however  parted  in  form. 


V. 


AN  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR. 

AN  ADDRESS  TO  THE  STUDENTS*  OF  THE  UNION  THEOLOGICAL 
SEMINARY  OF  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  OF  AMERICA, 
AT  THE  SEMINARY  IN  NEW  YORK,  OCT.   20,  1878. 

It  gives  me  great  pleasure,  not  only  to  hear  the  kind 
words  of  your  President,  but  to  see  the  faces  of  so 
many  young  students,  who  are  called  to  work  in  this 
seminary  and  to  carry  out  in  their  several  spheres  the 
destinies,  so  far  as  in  them  lies,  of  the  Church  to 
which  they  belong  and  of  the  vast  Republic  of  which 
that  Church  forms  so  large  a  part.  Your  President 
has  spoken  of  the  contrast  between  the  youth  of  this 
country  and  the  age  of  mine.  That,  of  course,  is  a 
contrast  which  strikes  everyone  who  comes  from  the 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic  to  this ;  but  there  is  one 
element  which  is  common  to  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic 


*  This  Address  is  printed  almost  verbatim  from  an  unusually 
faithful  report  made  by  the  students  themselves. 


24 


ADDRESSES.— NEW  YORK. 


[v. 


one  spring  of 'youth  which  is  perpetual,  and  that  is  the 
sight  of  the  young  generation  rising  up  and  the  inspi- 
ration which  that  sight  gives  to  anyone  who  looks 
upon  them.  I  remember  a  friend*  of  mine,  a  poet, 
who  has  visited  America,  and  whose  name  is  dear 
to  both  countries,  once  quoting  those  lines  of  Words- 
worth's, 

My  heart  leaps  up  when  I  behold 
A  rainbow  in  the  sky  ; 

"and,"  he  added — we  were  speaking  about  colleges  

"my  heart  leaps  up  when  I  behold  an  under- 
graduate." Well,  that  is  very  much  my  feeling  when 
I  look  upon  you.  Young  men  all  over  the  world  are 
very  much  the  same ;  and  what  I  would  say  to  young 
men  at  Oxford  or  Cambridge  I  believe  I  may  fairly 
say  to  you. 

I  would  wish,  as  far  as  I  can,  to  concentrate  my 
remarks,  so  as  not  to  lose  myself  in  those  vague 
commonplaces  into  which  one  is  liable  to  fall  when 
speaking  in  the  midst  of  an  institution  of  which  one 
knows  very  little,  and  to  persons  who  of  necessity  are 
strangers.  This  I  will  endeavour  to  effect  by  re- 
calling to  you  and  to  myself  a  debt  of  gratitude  which 
for  many,  many  years  I  have  owed  to  Union  Seminary. 


•  The  late  Arthur  H.  Clough. 


v.] 


AN  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR. 


25 


My  first  acquaintance  with  American  theological  litera- 
ture— I  might  almost  say  my  first  exact  acquaintance 
with  American  literature  at  all — was  in  reading  the 
works  of  a  Professor  of  Union  Seminary.  I  mean 
the  "Biblical  Researches"  of  Dr.  Robinson.  Whether 
any  of  you  have  ever  embarked  on  the  study  of  those 
four,  volumes  it  is  not  for  me  to  ask ;  but  they  are 
amongst  the  very  few  books  of  modern  literature  of 
which  I  can  truly  say  that  I  have  read  every  word.  I 
have  read  them  under  circumstances  which  riveted  my 
attention  upon  them  (though,  no  doubt,  not  con- 
ducive to  a  very  profound  study  of  them) — while  riding 
on  the  back  of  a  camel  in  the  Desert ;  while  travelling 
on  horseback  through  the  hills  of  Palestine;  under 
the  shadow  of  my  tent,  when  I  came  in  weary  from 
the  day's  journey.  These  were  the  scenes  in  which  I 
first  became  acquainted  with  the  work  of  Dr.  Robinson. 
But  to  that  work  I  have  felt  that  I  and  all  students  of 
Biblical  literature  owe  a  debt  that  never  can  be  effaced. 
Those  books  are  not  such  as  any  theological  student 
in  America,  or  elsewhere,  will  be  likely  to  read  through 
unless  he  has  some  special  stimulus  to  do  so.  But 
I  cannot  help  recalling  them  on  this  occasion,  not 
only  for  the  special  personal  reason  which  I  have 
mentioned,   but   also   because   they  appear  to  me  to 


26  ADDRESSES.— NEW  YORK. 


[V. 


furnish  a  kind  of  framework  for  some  remarks  which 
are  applicable  to  all  theological  students  everywhere. 

There  are  three  characteristics  of  the  "Biblical 
Researches"  of  Dr.  Robinson  which  apply  far  more 
widely  than  to  the  study  of  sacred  geography.  The  first 
is  the  devotion  with  which  he  applied  himself  to  one 
particular  portion  of  the  study  of  the  Bible— the  outer 
framework  of  it— without  any  fear  or  hesitation  as  to 
any  consequences  which  might  be  derived  from  it.  Dr. 
Robinson,  I  believe  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  was  the 
first  person  who  ever  saw  Palestine  with  his  eyes  open 
as  to  what  he  ought  to  see.  Hundreds  and  thousands 
of  travellers  had  visited  Palestine  before— pilgrims, 
seekers  after  pleasure,  even  scientific  travellers— but 
there  was  no  person  before  his  time  who  had  come  to 
visit  that  sacred  country,  with  all  the  appliances  ready 
beforehand  which  were  necessary  to  enable  him  to  under- 
stand what  he  saw;  and  he  also  was  the  first  person 
who  came  there  with  an  eye  capable  of  observing, 
and  a  hand  capable  of  recording,  all  that  with  these 
appliances  he  brought  before  his  vision.  Now,  this 
is  a  part  of  his  work  which  applies  to  many  other 
subjects  than  to  the  geography  of  Palestine  or 
the  geography  of  Arabia.  It  is  the  same  principle 
which  I  endeavour  to  impress  upon  all  theological 


V.]  AN  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR.  27 

students — the  great  difference  between  having  eyes  to 
observe  and  not  having  eyes  to  observe.  You  may 
travel  through  a  country ;  you  may  travel  through  a 
book ;  you  may  travel'  through  the  Bible  itself,  either 
with  eyes  to  see  what  is  in  that  book  or  in  that  land, 
or  with  the  dull,  unreasoning,  unobserving  blindness 
which  sees  nothing  at  all.  You  ought  to  cultivate  as 
much  as  possible  this  habit  of  observation.  You  ought 
to  cultivate  it,  I  say,  without  fear  of  the  consequences. 
There  are  some  people  who,  I  believe,  are  afraid  even 
of  sacred  geography.  They  are  afraid  of  having  the 
outward  facts  and  circumstances  connected  with  sacred 
history  brought  close  to  them.  I  rem  ,,  >ber  hearing  of  an 
old  Scotswoman — no  doubt  an  old  Scottish  Presbyterian — 
who,  on  being  told  that  some  one  had  been  to  Jerusalem, 
said  :  "  You  will  na  make  me  believe  that.  There  is  na 
such  place  as  Jerusalem  on  airth  ! "  Well,  that  feeling  of 
the  old  Scotswoman  is,  I  believe,  very  common  with 
a  large  part  of  the  community.  They  cannot  bring 
themselves  to  believe  that  the  events  of  which  we  read 
in  the  Bible  really  occurred  amongst  persons  like  our- 
selves ;  and  it  is  one  great  advantage  of  such  a  faithful, 
accurate  study  of  Palestine  as  Dr.  Robinson  gave  to  us, 
that  we  are  almost  forced  to  remember  that  such  is  the 
case — that  there  was  a  real  geography  ;  there  was  a  real 


28  ADDRESSES.— NEW  YORK.  [v. 


history ;  there  were  real  men  and  women,  who  are  de- 
scribed in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  and  whom  we 
must  approach  with  all  reverence  and  with  all  humility, 
but  still  with  the  firm  conviction  that  they  lived  in  the 
same  humble  kind  of  way,  and  with  the  same  human 
passions  and  infirmities,  or  at  least  with  the  same  out- 
ward surroundings  as  ourselves. 

The  second  lesson  which  I  would  wish  you  to  derive 
from  this  work  of  your  celebrated  Professor  is  this : — 

A  friend  of  mine,  at  Oxford,  once  paid  a  visit  to  a 
very  old  man,  who  was  regarded  as  a  kind  of  oracle, 
for  he  lived  to  his  hundredth  year;  and  the  longer 
he  lived  the  more  people  went  to  inquire  of  him,  as  if 
he  were  an  infallible  oracle.  My  friend  went  to  him, 
and  said  :  "  Would  you  kindly  give  me  some  advice  in 
regard  to  reading  theology  ? "  And  he  was  rather  dis- 
comfited at  the  old  man's  saying,  after  a  long  pause  : 
"  I  will  give  you  my  advice.  It  is,  Verify  your 
references."  Well,  I  will  not  confine  myself  to  so 
homely  a  piece  of  advice  as  that,  although  it  was  very 
good ;  but  I  will  say  :  Verify  your  facts.  That  was 
what  Professor  Robinson  did,  with  the  greatest  care. 
One  value  of  his  book  on  Palestine  is  its  extreme 
accuracy.  I  travelled  with  those  four  volumes  through 
the  country,  and  at  the  end  of  the  time  I  wrote  to  him 


v.]  AN  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR.  29 

at  New  York,  to  say  that  the  greatest  compliment  that  I 
could  pay  him,  after  having  read  his  books  under  such 
circumstances,  was  that  I  had  found  in  them  only  three 
small,  insignificant  errors.  This  accuracy,  this  verifica- 
tion of  facts,  this  sifting  of  things  to  the  bottom,  is  a 
thing  which  all  students  ought  to  cultivate,  and  which 
theological  students  ought  especially  to  cultivate,  be- 
cause it  is  something  which  theological  students  are 
especially  apt  to  neglect.  Do  let  me  entreat  of  you  to 
look  facts  in  the  face,  whether  the  facts  of  the  Bible,  or 
the  facts  of  science,  or  the  facts  of  scholarship.  Do 
not  be  afraid  of  them.  Go  as  far  as  you  possibly  can 
in  the  language  of  Greek  and  Hebrew,  in  the  com- 
parison of  the  sacred  volumes  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments  with  the  sacred  volumes  of  other  religions. 
Make  the  most  thorough  and  searching  investigation 
that  you  can,  with  light  from  whatever  quarter,  as  to 
the  origin  of  the  sacred  books :  and  in  this  way  you 
will  be  discharging  your  duty,  as  students  and  as 
pastors,  to  your  Church  and  to  your  country,  in  this 
great  and  stirring  age  in  which  our  lot  is  cast. 

The  third  characteristic  which  distinguishes  Dr. 
Robinson's  writings  is  this  :  I  have  said  that  they 
are  books  which  we  are  not  likely  to  read  through 
for  ourselves,  unless  under   some   special  temptation 


ADDRESSES.— NEW  YORK. 


[v. 


to  study  sacred  geography ;  but  there  is  one  charac- 
teristic of  them  which  we  may  all  take  as  lessons  to 
ourselves —  that  is,  their  style.  The  style  of  Dr. 
Robinson's  book  is  characterised  by  its  extreme  sim- 
plicity, combined  with  an  elevation  of  description  and 
of  feeling  whenever  the  subject  demands  it.  There 
are  books  on  theology  which  we  sometimes  read, 
where,  first  of  all,  there  is  no  style  at  all,  and  also 
where  whatever  style  there  be  is  all  couched  in  the 
same  uniform  tone,  cither  of  dulness  or  of  exaggera- 
tion. Now  in  Dr.  Robinson's  book  there  may  be 
pages,  no  doubt,  which  we  should  call  dull,  because 
they  never  rise  above  the  actual  facts  which  he  has 
to  teach  us ;  but  whenever  he  does  come  within 
sight  of  some  great  and  impressive  scene—when  he 
comes,  for  example,  within  sight  of  Mount  Sinai  or 
within  sight  of  Jerusalem— his  style,  simple  and  massive 
as  it  is,  is  adorned  with  a  native  eloquence  which  at 
once  arrests  our  attention  and  calls  forth  our  admira- 
tion. It  is  this  style— this  union  of  simplicity  where 
simplicity  is  desirable,  and  of  elevation  where  elevation 
is  desirable — which  produces  upon  our  minds  that  sense 
of  proportion  so  difficult  for  theological  students  to 
obtain,  so  distinctive  yet  so  important,  whether  as 
regards  writing  or  preaching.     To  write  on  all  sorts 


AN  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR. 


3 


of  subjects  connected  with  religion  in  a  high-flown, 
inflated,  exaggerated  manner  is,  as  I  said  just  now,  a 
temptation  into  which  we  are  all  apt  to  fall.  The 
subject  rather  encourages  it.  The  subjects  of  theology 
are  so  great  that  we  imagine  that  if  we  adopt  this 
kind  of  exaggerated  style  we  are  only  following  the 
natural  expressions  of  a  religious  heart.  Nevertheless, 
whatever  excuses  we  may  make  for  this  inflation,  it  is 
a  thing  to  be  especially  avoided,  and  it  is  a  fault  into 
which  American  students  of  theology  are  especially  likely 
to  fall.  Do  beware  of  it.  It  very  much  diminishes 
your  influence.  This  inflated  style  is  really  one  of 
the  chief  drawbacks  which  we  have  in  Europe  to 
our  enjoyment  of  American  literature.  Dr.  Robinson 
I  venture  to  say,  is  a  most  admirable  exception,  and 
he  should  be  an  example  and  a  warning  equally  in 
Europe  and  in  America. 

But  it  is  not  only  thus  with  regard  to  your  style. 
It  is  also  very  desirable  to  keep  before  your  minds 
the  necessity  of  distinguishing  between  what  is  im- 
portant and  what  is  unimportant,  what  is  essential 
and  what  is  unessential,  what  is  primary  and  what  is 
secondary.  I  once  knew  a  very  distinguished  Italian 
layman  who  said  that,  if  he  were  to  sum  up  the  faults 
of  the  theology  of  the  Roman  Church  in  one  word, 


32 


ADDRESSES.— NEW  YORK. 


[▼- 


it  would  be  that  they  confounded  the  instrumentals 
with  the  fundamentals.  There  are  times  when  we 
likewise  are  prone  to  confound  instrumentals  with 
fundamentals;  to  confound  things  which  are  of  no 
importance  at  all  with  things  which  are  of  the  utmost 
importance. 

These  are  some  of  the  remarks  which  have  been 
suggested  to  me  by  finding  myself  confronted  with  so 
many  young  students,  and  by  my  having  to  speak  in 
Union  Seminary,  which  numbered  Dr.  Robinson  among 
its  professors.  I  cannot  hope  that  remarks  thrown 
out  in  this  cursory  and  fugitive  manner  can  produce 
any  very  lasting  impression  on  those  who  hear  them ; 
yet  it  is  possible  that  even  remarks  like  these,  corning 
from  a  stranger  like  myself,  coming  from  one  whose 
office,  at  any  rate,  as  your  President  has  kindly 
observed,  is  well  known  to  you  ;  whose  habitation  is 
connected,  as  he  has  reminded  you,  with  the  first 
beginnings  of  the  theology  of  English,  Scottish,  and 
American  Presbyterianism — may  now  and  then  recur 
to  you  in  the  course  of  your  theological  studies,  and 
may  lead  you,  perchance,  into  some  of  the  reflections 
which  I  have  suggested :  first,  on  the  desirableness  of 
remembering  the  historical  character  of  the  sacred 
books  with  which  we  have  to  deal  ;  secondly,  on 


AN  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR. 


33 


the  necessity  of  verifying  and  pursuing  to  the  utmost 
all  facts  that  are  brought  before  you,  whether  in  science 
or  religion ;  and,  thirdly,  the  importance  of  observing  a 
sense  of  proportion,  whether  in  your  style,  or  your 
ideas,  or  your  conception  of  the  various  doctrines  of 
Christianity. 

I  wish  you  all  every  success  in  the  work  in  which 
you  are  employed.  Every  student  and  pastor  has  his 
part  to  play  in  this  age  of  transition  through  which 
we  are  passing.  I  shall  not  live  to  see  the  end  of 
those  problems  which  now  agitate  the  minds  of  men, 
but  you  will  perhaps  live  to  see  them  solved.  You, 
perhaps,  in  the  twentieth  century,  will  live  to  see  a 
brighter  and  a  happier  day  than  that  which  sometimes 
seems  to  overcloud  the  minds  and  oppress  the  hopes  of 
those  who  live  in  the  latter  part  of  this  nineteenth 
century.  But  I  will  not  depart  from  you  except  with 
words  of  hope.  May  God  bless  you  ;  may  God  sustain 
you  in  your  efforts ;  may  God  enable  you,  through  the 
spirit  of  wisdom  and  understanding  and  godly  fear, 
both  in  your  studies  and  in  your  pastoral  duties,  to 
fulfil  the  work,  whatever  it  be,  that  He  has  assigned 
both  to  the  greatest  and  the  humblest  amongst  you. 


D 


JOHN  WESLEY. 


AN    ADDRESS    DELIVERED    AT    A    RECEPTION    BY   THE  BISHOPS, 

PASTORS,  AND  MEMBERS  OF  THE  METHODIST  EPISCOPAL 
CHURCH,  IN  ST.   PAUL'S  METHODIST   CHURCH,  NEW  YORK, 

november  i,  1878.* 

Bishops,  Pastors,  and  Members  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  :  I  tender  to  you  my  sincere  and 
grateful  thanks  for  the  honour  which  you  have  done 
to  me,  and  to  the  Church  and  country  which  I 
humbly  represent,  by  the  kindness  and  cordiality  with 
which  you  have  welcomed  me  this  evening. 

I  am  aware  that  one  of  the  chief  grounds — I  may 
say  the  chief  ground— on  which  this  welcome  has  been 
afforded  me  is  a  recognition  of  the  debt  which  I 
have  been  thankful  to  have  been  able  to  repay  to 
the  founder  of  the  Society  of  Methodists.     When  I 


*  Taken  almost  verbaiim  from  the  excellent  report  in  Tht 
Christian  Advocate. 


VI.] 


JOHN  WESLEY. 


35 


think  of  this  vast  assemblage,  when  I  think  of  the 
magnificent  results  which  Methodism  has  achieved  in 
this  great  country,  it  would  be  tempting  to  me  to 
enlarge  on  the  hopes  and  the  prospects  which  may 
lie  before  the  Methodist  Church  in  the  United  States 
of  America ;  but  I  feel  that  the  ignorance  under 
which  a  stranger  comes  to  a  foreign  land  forbids  him 
to  enlarge  on  a  field  of  which  he  must  necessarily 
know  very  little,  and  I  therefore  prefer  to  confine  the 
few  remarks  which  I  venture  to  make  on  this  occasion 
to  the  reasons  which  induced  me  in  England,  and 
which  now  induce  me  here,  to  pay  my  humble  tribute 
to  John  Wesley,  the  founder  of  this  great  society. 
In  so  doing  I  trust  that  you  will  feel,  and  I  feel 
myself,  that  I  am  best  enlarging  on  the  sources  of 
your  strength,  and  best  unfolding  the  hopes  that 
open  before  you. 

In  the  address  which  has  been  kindly  presented 
to  me,  allusion  has  been  made  to  the  monument 
in  Westminster  Abbey,  which  by  my  permission  was 
erected  to  the  memory  of  the  two  illustrious  brothers 
who  established  the  first  beginnings  of  Methodism.  It 
was  some  eight  or  ten  years  ago  that  the  then  President 
of  the  Wesleyan  Conference  in  England,  whose  name, 
has  been  rightly  mentioned  in  the  address  just  read 

D  2 


36 


ADDRESSES.— NEW  YORK. 


[VI. 


asked,  with  that  courtesy  and  modesty  which  is 
characteristic  of  him,  if  I  would  allow  the  erection 
of  a  monument  in  Westminster  Abbey,  in  Poets' 
Corner,  to  Charles  Wesley,  as  the  sweet  Psalmist  of 
our  English  Israel.  I  ventured  to  answer :  "  If  we 
are  to  have  a  monument  to  Charles,  why  not  to 
John?"  To  John  Wesley,  accordingly,  together  with 
his  brother  Charles  —  not  as  excluding  Charles,  but 
as  the  greater  genius,  as  the  greater  spirit  of  the  two 
— that  monument  has  been  erected.  It  was  erected 
close  to  a  monument  which  in  the  last  century  was 
placed  there  to  the  memory  of  the  great  Congregational 
divine  and  poet,  Isaac  Watts,  and  I  mention  the  cir- 
cumstance as  showing  that,  in  welcoming  this  recog- 
nition of  your  illustrious  founder,  I  have  been  but 
following  precedents  already  established  in  Westminster 
Abbey  and  in  the  Church  of  England. 

It  has  been  said  in  the  address,  and  I  think 
that  it  has  been  said  also  by  the  other  speakers, 
that  we  are  assembled  here  in  a  building  consecrated  to 
the  Methodist  worship,  consecrated  to  the  worship 
of  Almighty  God,  as  set  on  foot  in  this  country  by 
John  Wesley.  It  reminds  me  of  what  happened  to 
myself  when  on  visiting,  in  London,  the  City  Road 
Chapel,  in  which  John  Wesley  ministered,  and  the 


JOHN  WESLEY. 


37 


cemetery  adjoining  in  which  he  is  buried,  I  asked 
an  old  man  who  showed  me  the  cemetery — I  asked 
him,  perhaps  inadvertently  and  as  an  English  Church- 
man might  naturally  ask — "By  whom  was  this  ceme- 
tery consecrated?"  and  he  answered:  "It  was  con- 
secrated by  the  bones  of  that  holy  man,  that  holy 
servant  of  God,  John  Wesley."  In  the  spirit  of  that 
remark  I  return  to  the  point  to  which  I  have  ven- 
tured to  address  my  remarks,  and  that  is  the  claims 
which  the  character  and  career  of  John  Wesley  have, 
not  only  upon  your  veneration,  but  upon  the  veneration 
of  English  Christendom. 

And  first  of  all,  may  I  venture  to  say  that  in 
claiming  him  as  your  founder,  you  enjoy  a  peculiar 
privilege  among  the  various  communions  which  have 
from  time  to  time  broken  off  from  the  communion  of 
the  Church  of  England.  The  founder  of  the  English 
Baptists  (they  will  allow  me  to  say  so)  is  compara- 
tively unknown.  The  founder  of  the  English  Congrega- 
tionalists  (and  I  say  it  with  no  shadow  of  disrespect) 
is  also  comparatively  unknown ;  the  founder  of  En- 
glish Unitarianism  (and  I  say  it  again  without  a  shadow 
of  disrespect)  is  also  comparatively  obscure ;  the 
founder  of  the  Society  of  Friends,  George  Fox,  has 
been  superseded  in  celebrity  by  William  Penn,  and 


38  ADDRESSES.— NEW  YORK.  [yi 

by  other  illustrious  Friends  who  have  risen  in  that 
society  since  his  departure.  But  it  is  no  disrespect  to 
the  famous  society  of  Methodists.,  it  is  no  disrespect  to 
the  eminent  and  reverend  persons  who  sit  around  me, 
to  say  that  no  one  has  risen  in  the  Methodist  Society 
equal  to  their  founder,  John  Wesley.  It  is  this 
which  makes  his  character  and  his  fortunes  so  peculiarly 
interesting  to  the  whole  Christian  world. 

And  let  me  ask  in  what  particulars  it  is  that 
John  Wesley  has  attained  this  great  pre  eminence  ? 
First  of  all,  there  is  a  remark  which  is  to  all  reflecting 
persons  specially  instructive,  that,  if  you  will  allow  me 
to  say  so,  his  career  is  a  vindication  of  the  character 
of  the  much  despised  eighteenth  century.  I  know  not 
whether  in  America,  but  certainly  in  England,  it  has 
been  the  habit  of  our  time  to  disparage  altogether  the 
religious  genius  of  that  age.  John  Wesley,  if  any  person 
of  the  last  century,  was  a  representative  of  it ;  in  his 
long  and  eventful  life  he  covered  almost  the  whole  of 
those  hundred  years.  He  showed  that  even  in  that 
century,  in  many  respects  dry  and  dull,  there  was  a 
capacity  for  producing  a  religious  character  of  the 
highest  order.  He  was  the  chief  reviver  of  religious 
fervour  in  all  Protestant  Churches  both  of  the  Old 
and  the  New  World.    He  had— as  has  been  well  said 


VI.] 


JOHN  WESLEY. 


39 


by  one  whom  I  venture  to  call  the  first  of  modern 
English*  critics — he  had  "a  genius  for  godliness.'"' 

Again,  there  is  this  very  interesting  peculiarity  of 
John  Wesley — interesting  not  only  to  Wesleyans,  but 
to  every  communion  throughout  the  world — that  he 
showed  how  it  was  possible  to  make  a  very  wide 
divergence  from  the  communion  to  which  he  belonged 
without  parting  from  it.  "  I  vary,"  he  used  to  say, 
"  I  vary  from  the  Church  of  England,  but  I  will  never 
leave  it."  And  in  this  assurance  of  his  determina- 
tion to  hold  to  the  Church  of  England  in  spite 
of  all  difficulties  and  obstacles  he  persevered  unto 
the  end.  It  would  be  unfitting  and  unbecoming  in 
me  to  cast  any  censure  on  the  course  which  this  great 
society,  especially  in  America,  has  taken  since  his 
death.  Circumstances  change ;  opportunities  are  lost ; 
events  which  might  have  been  possible  in  his  life- 
time may  have  become  impossible  since.  Never- 
theless, the  relations  which  he  himself  maintained 
towards  the  Church  of  England  give  encouragement 
to  all  intelligent  minds  and  active  hearts  in  their 
several  communions  to  endeavour  to  make  the  best  of 
an  institution  so  long  as  they  can  possibly  remain  in 
it.    And  on  these  relations  which  he  encouraged  his  fol- 


*  Matthew  Arnold. 


ADDRESSES.— NEW  YORK:. 


[VI. 


lowers  to  maintain,  of  friendliness  and  communion  with 
the  Church  of  England,  I  need  not  repeat  his  oft- 
reiterated  phrases.  Those  expressions,  those  entreaties, 
which  he  urged  upon  his  followers,  not  to  part  from  the 
mother  Church-,  are  not  the  less  instructive  nor  the  less 
applicable  because,  as  I  have  said,  circumstances  both  in 
England  and  in  America  have  in  some  degree  parted  us 
asunder.  There  are  those  in  our  own  country — there 
are  possibly  those  in  America — who  think  that  the 
Wesleyans,  the  Methodists,  may  perchance  be  one  of  the 
links  of  union  between  the  mother  Church  of  England 
and  those  who  are  more  or  less  estranged  from  it.  On 
this  I  pronounce  no  opinion.  I  know  that  separations 
once  made  are  very  difficult  to  reconcile.  Like  the  two 
friends  described  by  the  English  poet  (I  apply  a  quota- 
tion used  by  Norman  M'Leod  on  a  like  occasion) : 

They  stand  aloof,  the  scars  remaining, 
Like  cliffs  that  have  been  rent  asunder. 

But  still  we  may  always  trust  that  something  of 
the  old  affection  to  the  old  Church  still  continues. 
One  cannot  help  seeing — this  very  occasion  shows  it — 
that  there  is  something  in  the  hearts  of  Methodists  which 
responds  to  the  feeling  still  entertained  towards  them 
by  the  mother  Church.  I  always  feel  that  some  in- 
justice has  been  dine,  in  common  parlance,  both  in 


vi.] 


JOHN  WESLEY. 


4i 


our  Church  and  in  the  outlying  communions,  to  the 
bishops  and  the  authorities  of  our  Church  at  the  time 
of  John  Wesley's  career.  It  was  not,  as  has  been  often 
incorrectly  said,  by  the  action  of  the  English  bishops 
that  John  Wesley  and  his  followers  were  estranged  from 
us.  The  King  (George  II.),  the  judges,  and  the  chief 
bishops  —  I  particularly  mention  Archbishop  Potter, 
Bishop  Gibson,  Bishop  Benson,  and  the  famous  Bishop 
Lowth — treated  him  with  the  utmost  consideration  and 
respect ;  and  nothing  could  have  been  more  friendly 
than  the  conduct  of  George  II.,  or  of  the  judges 
of  England,  toward  John  Wesley  and  his  followers. 
It  was  the  ignorant  country  squires,  and  country  clergy, 
and  above  all  the  ignorant  multitudes,  that  would 
not  endure  him.  The  hostility  arose  very  much  from 
that  stupid,  vulgar,  illiterate  prejudice  which  exists  in 
the  professional  fanaticism  and  exclusiveness  of  the 
less  educated  clergy  everywhere,  and  in  that  bar- 
barous intolerance  so  characteristic  of  the  mobs  of  all 
countries.  The  feeling  which  drove  the  followers  of 
John  Wesley  from  a  place  in  the  Church  of  England, 
a  few  years  later  drove  the  philosopher  Priestley  from 
his  scientific  studies  at  Birmingham  to  take  refuge  in 
Pennsylvania.  Therefore,  I  repeat,  the  feeling  between 
the  Church  of  England  and  the  Methodists  need  never 


42  ADDRESSES. — NE IV  YORK.  [vi. 

be  broken.  You  may  remain  apart  from  us,  and  we 
may  remain  apart  from  you ;  but  we  shall  always  feel 
that  there  is  an  undercurrent  of  sympathy  on  which  we 
can  always  rely,  and  which,  in  times  far  distant,  may 
possibly  once  more  bring  us  together. 

I  pass  from  these  preliminary  and  general  remarks 
to  three  points  which  characterise  the  method  of  his 
teachings,  and  which  also  are  of  immense  value  for 
all  Christian  Churches. 

One  of  them  is  that  which  is  inscribed  on  his  monu- 
ment :  "  The  world  is  my  parish."  It  is  true  that  there 
is  a  counter  principle,  no  less  true,  "  The  parish  is  my 
world."  The  particular  sphere  in  which  each  of  us  has 
to  labour  is  for  each  of  us  the  most  important,  may  be 
for  each  of  us  the  world,  the  chief  world,  perhaps  the 
only  world  in  which  we  may  hope  to  do  any  good ;  if  we 
fail  there,  we  shall  hardly  succeed  anywhere.  But  still  we 
must  also  bear  in  mind  Wesley's  principle.  We  are  not 
confined  in  our  ministrations  or  our  teachings  only  to 
the  particular  sphere  in  which  our  lot  may  happen  to 
be  cast.  For  those  who  write  books,  those  whose 
example  extends  beyond  their  own  circle,  the  world 
is  their  parish.  It  is  very  difficult  for  anyone  to  calcu- 
late how  far,  how  very  far,  even  in  this  almost  illimit- 
able country,  the  effect  of  his  influence  may  extend. 


JOHN  WESLEY. 


43 


The  world  of  America  is,  in  a  certain  sense,  the 
parish  of  everyone  who  hears  me.  On  the  effect  of 
the  examples  which  you,  young  or  old,  layman  or 
pastor,  may  hold  forth,  the  destinies  of  this  country  to 
a  great  degree  may  hang.  It  is  so  in  all  lands.  It 
must  be  especially  so  in  a  country  like  this,  where 
public  opinion,  where  the  opinion  of  the  people  at 
large,  is  supposed  to  have  so  great  a  sway.  Do  not 
for  a  moment  suppose  that  you  can  wink  at  individual 
corruption  and  yet  leave  the  world  of  this  great  country 
uninjured.  Each  one  of  you  must  remember  that 
whether  in  giving  your  votes,  or  in  writing  for  news- 
papers, or  in  whatever  sphere  you  may  be  exercising 
any  influence  at  all,  that  influence  may  reach  far 
beyond  the  parish  or  place  in  which  your  daily  duties 
lie — "  the  world  is  your  parish." 

Another  point  on  which  Wesley  laid  stress  was  the 
principle  that  it  was  not  desirable  to  have  preachers 
and  teachers  and  pastors  stationed  in  one  place,  but 
that  the  standard  of  religion  and  morality  had  to 
be  constantly  quickened  and  freshened  by  the  system 
of  itinerant  preachers  and  pastors,  who  were  to 
enliven  and  revive  religious  feeling  from  time  to 
time,  from  season  to  season,  in  places  where  otherwise 
decay  and  dulness  might  have  set  in.    You  will,  here 


44 


ADDRESSES.— NEW  YORK. 


[VI. 


too,  allow  me  to  say  that  the  opposite  principle  has 
also  some  value.  There  is  some  value  in  a  pastor 
growing  up  amongst  his  people,  a  pastor  who  has  seen 
successive  generations  growing  up  around  him — when 
to  the  influence  of  his  preaching  is  added  the  far 
greater  and  more  spiritual  influence  of  a  long  life  of 
good  example,  known  and  loved  by  the  fathers  and 
children  of  all  the  homes  that  are  gathered  within 
reach  of  the  parish  church.  Yet  we  ought  all  to  feel 
that  there  is,  nevertheless,  such  a  thing  as  the  neces- 
sity of  enlightening  and  refreshing  these  more  stationary 
pastorates  by  the  introduction  of  new  influences,  new 
hopes,  new  instruments,  such  as  John  Wesley  had 
in  mind  when  he  conceived  his  design  of  itinerant 
preachers.  In  the  old  country  this  has  been  to  a 
large  extent  acknowledged  by  the  introduction  of  special 
services  and  sermons  over  and  above  the  stated  and 
regular  ministrations.  To  a  certain  degree  the  Church 
of  England  has  profited  by  his  warnings ;  and  the 
services  and  sermons  which  have  now  been  set  on 
foot  in  almost  every  cathedral  of  England — varying 
the  stationary  teaching  by  the  constant  introduction 
of  new  preachers,  coming  again  and  again,  so  as  to 
infuse  new  life  into  these  old  congregations  and  a 
new  spirit  into  these  old  grooves  —  are  examples  of 


VI.] 


JOHN  WESLEY. 


45 


the  manner  in  which  John  Wesley's  principles  may  be 
engrafted  into  Churches  seeming  at  first  to  be  very 
far  removed  from  Wesleyan  institutions. 

There  is  yet  one  further  remark  which  I  would  venture 
to  make  on  the  character  and  career  of  John  Wesley. 
Everyone  who  knows  anything  of  his  long  and  eventful 
course  will  know  that  there  are  many  points  in  it  which 
it  is  difficult  to  defend  or  to  reconcile.  But  the  question 
always  arises  in  any  person  of  historical  magnitude — 
such  a  man  as  your  famous  founder — what  was  the 
primary,  fundamental,  overruling  principle  of  his  whole 
character  and  teaching  ?  And  for  this  we  have  the  best 
possible  testimonies.  We  have  the  testimony — I  have 
heard  it  myself — from  humble  Methodists  in  England, 
aged  persons  who  had  hung  upon  his  lips  and  seen  him 
in  the  cottages  of  the  poor.  We  have  also  the  testimony 
— I  know  not  whether  you  are  acquainted  with  it,  but  if 
not  I  strongly  recommend  it  to  the  study  and  perusal  of 
every  Methodist,  whether  in  England  or  America — we 
have  the  testimony  of  a  most  enlightened  and  distin- 
guished layman,  who  was  his  intimate  friend,  and  who 
judged  him  not  merely  like  his  more  enthusiastic  and 
unlettered  followers,  but  with  the  full  discernment 
of  character  which  superior  intelligence  and  refined 
religion  alone  can  give.     I   mean  Alexander  Knox. 


46 


ADDRESSES.— NEW  YORK. 


[VI. 


He  has  described  him  to  us  in  terms  most  striking 
and  persuasive,  in  the  letter  appended  to  the  latest 
edition  of  Southey's  "  Life  of  Wesley."  He  has  recorded 
his  conviction  that  the  main  fundamental  overpowering 
principle  of  Wesley's  life 'was  not  the  promotion  of  any 
particular  dogma  or  any  particular  doctrine,,  but  the 
elevation  of  the  whole  Christian  world  in  the  great  prin- 
ciples of  Christian  holiness  and  morality.  I  might 
enforce  this  by  many  extracts  from  this  letter  of 
Mr.  Knox,  or  by  expressions  both  of  his  humble  and 
of  his  more  intelligent  followers ;  but  it  is  enough  to 
refer  you  to  the  sayings  and  sermons  in  which  this 
principle  is  again  and  again  repeated  with  every  kind 
of  emphasis  by  John  Wesley  himself.  You  will  see  it 
in  his  journals,  you  will  see  it  in  his  sermons  on  the 
catholic  spirit,  and  on  the  Beatitudes,  those  admirable 
sermons  to  which  all  Methodists  express  their  adhesion. 
There  is  one  passage,  which  I  have  selected  out  of 
hundreds,  which  I  trust  you  will  allow  me  to  read  to 
you,  both  because  it  gives  in  the  most  emphatic  and 
attractive  language  this  principle  of  his  mission,  and 
also  because  it  expresses  that  friendly  and  kindly  re- 
lation which,  as  in  the  former  part  of  this  address,  I 
endeavoured  to  show  to  you,  existed  between  him  and 
the  high  authorities  of  the  Church  of  England.  Let 


vi.] 


47 


me  give  one  single  extract :  "  Near  fifty  years  ago, 
a  great  and  good  man,  Dr.  Potter,  then  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  gave  me  an  advice  for  which  I  have 
ever  since  had  occasion  to  bless  God.  'If  you 
desire  to  be  extensively  useful,  do  not  spend  your 
time  and  strength  in  contending  for  or  against  such 
things  as  are  of  a  disputable  nature,  but  in  testi- 
fying against  open  notorious  vice,  and  in  promoting 
real  essential  holiness.'  Let  us  keep  to  this,  leaving 
a  thousand  disputable  points  to  those  that  have  no 
better  business  than  to  toss  the  ball  of  controversy  to 
and  fro  ;  let  us  keep  close  to  our  point ;  let  us  bear 
a  faithful  testimony,  in  our  several  stations,  against  all 
ungodliness  and  unrighteousness,  and,  with  all  our 
might,  recommend  that  inward  and  outward  holiness, 
'  without  which  no  man  shall  see  the  Lord.' " 

It  is  this  which  endears  the  memory  of  John 
Wesley,  not  only  to  his  own  society,  not  only  to 
the  Church  of  England,  but  to  all  who  wish  for  the 
welfare  and  the  progress  of  humanity  throughout  the" 
whole  world. 

It  is  because  of  the  keenness  and  the  pertinacity 
with  which  John  Wesley  maintained  this  fundamental 
doctrine  of  Christianity  that  I  rejoice  to  think  that 
he  is  honoured  amongst  the  kings  and  heroes,  amongst 


4»  ADDRESSES.— NEW  YORK. 


the  great,  whether  in  literature  or  science,  whose  monu- 
merits  adorn  the  walls  of  Westminster  Abbey. 

I  thank  you  all,  bishops  and  pastors,  who  sit  around 
me.  I  thank  you  also,  members  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  by  whom  this  building  is  so 
densely  filled.  I  thank  you  all  for  the  generous 
and  unexpected  sympathy,  with  which  I  have  been 
received  among  you  in  this  my  too  brief  visit  to  this 
great  country  and  to  this  famous  city. 


Vli, 


REPLY 

AT  THE  BREAKFAST  GIVEN  BY  THE  CENTURY  CLUB,  NEW  YORK, 
NOVEMBER  2,  1878. 

The  hospitality  shown  to  mc  has  been  no  exception 
to  that  with  which  every  Englishman  meets  in  this 
country,  in  the  endless  repetition  of  kind  words  and 
the  overwhelming  pressure  of  genial  entertainment 
which  has  been  thrust  upon  me.  That  famous  En- 
glishman, Dr.  Johnson,  when  he  went  from  England 
to  Scotland,  which,  at  that  time,  was  a  more  formid- 
able undertaking  than  is  a  voyage  from  England  to 
America  at  the  present  time,  met  at  a  reception  at 
St.  Andrew's  a  young  professor  who  said,  breaking  the 
gloomy  silence  of  the  occasion  :  "  I  trust  you  have  not 
been  disappointed  !"  And  the  famous  Englishman 
replied :  "  No ;  I  was  told  that  I  should  find  men  of 
rude  manners  and  savage  tastes,  and  I  have  not  been 

E 


5° 


ADDRESSES.— NEW  YORK. 


disappointed."  So,  too,  when  I  set  out  for  your  shores 
I  was  told  that  I  should  meet  a  kindly  welcome  and 
the  most  friendly  hospitality.  I  can  only  say,  with 
Dr.  Johnson,  I  have  not  been  disappointed. 

But  in  my  vivid  though  short  experience  of  Ame- 
rican life  and  manners,  I  have  experienced  not  only 
hospitality,  but  considerate  and  thoughtful  kindness,  for 
which  I  must  ever  be  grateful.  I  can  find  it  in  my 
heart  even  to  forgive  the  reporters  who  have  left  little 
of  what  I  have  said  or  done  unnoted,  and  when  they 
have  failed  in  this,  have  invented  fabulous  histories  of 
things  which  I  never  did  and  sayings  which  I  never 
uttered.  Sometimes  when  I  have  been  questioned  as 
to  my  impressions  and  views  of  America,  I  have  been 
tempted  to  say  with  an  Englishman  who  was  hard 
pressed  by  his  constituents  with  absurd  solicitations : 
"Gentlemen,  this  is  the  humblest  moment  of  my  life, 
that  you  should  take  me  for  such  a  fool  as  to  answer 
all  your  questions."  But  I  know  their  good  intentions 
and  I  forgive  them  freely. 

The  two  months  which  I  have  spent  on  these 
shores  seem  to  me  two  years  in  actual  work,  or  two 
centuries  rather,  for  in  them  I  have  lived  through  all 
American  history.  in  Virginia  I  saw  the  era  of 
the  earliest  settlers,   and  I   met   John   Smith  and 


VH.] 


THE  CENTURY  CLUB. 


Pocahontas  on  the  shores  of  the  James  river.  In 
Philadelphia  I  have  lived  with  William  Penn,  but 
in  a  splendour,  which  I  fear  would  have  shocked 
his  simple  soul.  At  Salem  I  have  encountered  the 
stern  founders  of  Massachussetts ;  at  Plymouth  I  have 
watched  the  Mayflower  threading  its  way  round  the 
shoals  and  promontories  of  that  intricate  bay.  On 
Lake  George  and  at  Quebec  I  have  followed  the 
struggle  between  the  English  and  the  French  for  the 
possession  of  this  great  continent.  At  Boston  and 
Concord  I  have  followed  the  progress  of  the  War  of 
Independence.  At  Mount  Vernon  I  have  enjoyed 
the  felicity  of  companionship  with  Washington  and 
his  associates.  I  pause  at  this  great  name,  and  carry 
my  recollections  no  further.  But  you  will  understand 
how  long  and  fruitful  an  experience  has  thus  been 
added  to  my  life,  during  the  few  weeks  in  which 
I  have  moved  amongst  the  scenes  of  your  eventful 
history. 

And  then  leaving  the  past  for  the  present,  a  new 
field  opens  before  me.  There  are  two  impressions 
which  are  fixed  upon  my  mind  as  to  the  leading  cha- 
racteristics of  the  people  among  whom  I  have  passed, 
as  the  almanack  informs  me,  but  two  short  months. 
On  the  one  hand  I  see  that  everything  seems  to  be 

E  2 


52  ADDRESSES.— NEW  YORK.  [vn. 


fermenting  and  growing,  changing,  perplexed,  bewilder- 
ing. In  that  memorable  hour — memorable,  in  the  life 
of  every  man,  memorable  as  when  he  sees  the  first 
view  of  the  Pyramids,  or  of  the  snow-clad  range  of 
the  Alps — in  the  hour  when  for  the  first  time  I 
stood  before  the  cataracts  of  Niagara,  I  seemed  to 
see  a  vision  of  the  fears  and  hopes  of  America.  It 
was  midnight,  the  moon  was  full,  and  I  saw  from 
the  suspension  bridge  the  ceaseless  contortion,  con- 
fusion, whirl,  and  chaos,  which  burst  forth  in  clouds  of 
foam  from  that  immense  central  chasm  which  divides  the 
American  from  the  British  dominion ;  and  as  I  looked 
on  that  ever-changing  movement,  and  listened  to  that 
everlasting  roar,  I  saw  an  emblem  of  the  devouring 
activity,  and  ceaseless,  restless,  beating  whirlpool  of 
existence  in  the  United  States.  But  into  the  moon- 
light sky  there  rose  a  cloud  of  spray  twice  as  high 
as  the  Falls  themselves,  silent,  majestic,  immovable. 
In  that  silver  column,  glittering  in  the  moonlight,  I 
saw  an  image  of  the  future  of  American  destiny,  of 
the  pillar  of  light  which  should  emerge  from  the  dis- 
tractions of  the  present — a  likeness  of  the  buoyancy 
and  hopefulness  which  characterises  you  both  as 
individuals  and  as  a  nation. 

You  may  remember  Wordsworth's   fine   lines  on 


vii.]  TJfE  CENTURY  CLUB. 


53 


"  Yarrow  Unvisited,  Visited,  and  Revisited."  "  America 
unvisited" — that  is  now  for  me  a  vision  of  the  past;  that 
fabulous  America,  in  which,  before  they  come  to  your 
shores,  Englishmen  believe  Pennsylvania  to  be  the 
capital  of  Mnssnchusetts,  and  Chicago  to  be  a  few  miles 
from  New  York — that  has  now  passed  away  from  my 
mind  for  ever.  "America  visited;"  this,  with  its  historic 
scenes  and  its  endless  suggestions  of  thought,  has  taken 
the  place  of  that  fictitious  region.  Whether  there  will 
ever  be  an  "America  revisited"  I  cannot  say;  but  if  there 
should  be,  it  will  then  be  to  me  not  the  land  of  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers  and  of  Washington,  so  much  as  the  land 
of  kindly  homes,  and  enduring  friendships,  and  happy 
recollections,  which  have  now  endeared  it  to  me.  One 
feature  of  this  visit  I  fear  I  cannot  hope  to  see  repeated, 
yet  one  without  which  it  could  never  have  been 
accomplished.  My  two  friends,  to  whom  such  a  pleas- 
ing reference  has  been  made  by  Dr.  Adams,  who  have 
made  the  task  easy  for  me  which  else  would  have  been 
impossible ;  who  have  lightened  every  anxiety ;  who 
have  watched  over  me  with  such  vigilant  care,  that  I 
have  not  been  allowed  to  touch  more  than  two  dollars 
in  the  whole  course  of  my  journey — they,  perchance, 
may  not  share  in  "America  revisited."  But  if  ever  such 
should  be  my  own  good  fortune,  I  shall  remember  it  as 


54  ADDRESSES.— NEW  YORK.  [vii. 

the  land  which  I  visited  with  them;  where,  if  at  first  they 
were  welcomed  to  your  homes  for  my  sake,  I  have 
often  felt  as  the  days  rolled  on  that  I  was  welcomed 
for  their  sake.  And  you  will  remember  them.  When 
in  after  years  you  read  at  the  end  of  some  elaborate 
essay  on  the  history  of  music  or  on  Biblical  geography 
the  name  of  George  Grove,  you  will  recall  with  pleasure 
the  incessant  questionings,  the  eager  desire  for  know- 
ledge, the  wide  and  varied  capacity  for  all  manner  of 
instruction,  which  you  experienced  in  your  conversa- 
tions with  him  here.  And  when  also  hereafter  there 
shall  reach  to  your  shores  the  fame  of  the  distin- 
guished physician,  Dr.  Harper,  whether  in  England 
or  in  New  Zealand,  you  will  be  the  more  rejoiced 
because  it  will  bring  before  you  the  memory  of  the 
youthful  and  blooming  student  who  inspected  your 
hospitals  with  such  keen  appreciation,  so  impartially 
sifting  the  good  from  the  evil. 

I  part  from  you  with  the  conviction  that  such 
bonds  of  kindly  intercourse  will  cement  the  union 
between  the  two  countries  even  more  than  the  won- 
derful cable,  on  which  it  is  popularly  believed  in 
England  that  my  friend  and  host,  Mr.  Cyrus  Field, 
passes  his  mysterious  existence,  appearing  and  re- 
appearing at  one  and  the  same  moment  in  London 


VII.] 


55 


and  in  New  York.  Of  that  unbroken  union  there 
seemed  to  me  a  likeness,  when  on  the  beautiful  shores 
of  Lake  George,  the  Loch  Katrine  of  America,  1  saw 
a  maple  and  an  oak  tree  growing  together  from  the 
same  stem,  perhaps  from  the  same  root— the  brilliant 
fiery  maple,  the  emblem  of  America ;  the  gnarled  and 
twisted  oak,  the  emblem  of  England.  So  may  the 
two  nations  always  rise  together,  so  different  each 
from  each,  and  representing  so  distinct  a  future,  yet 
each  springing  from  the  same  ancestral  root,  each 
bound  together  by  the  same  healthful  sap,  and  the 
same  vigorous  growth. 


VIII. 


REPLY 

TO   AN   ADDRESS    PRESENTED    BY   THE   BAPTIST   MINISTERS  OP 

NEW  YORK  AND  BROOKLYN,  ON  NOVEMBER  4,  1878. 

Perhaps  you  expect  me  to  say  a  few  words— but  they 
must  be  I  fear  brief— in  grateful  acknowledgment  for 
the  kind  reception  which  I  have  met  in  this  city, 
and  for  the  sentiments  in  the  address  which  has  just 
been  read.  It  is  certainly  not  too  much  for  me  to  say 
that  I  regard  the  great  Baptist  denomination  with  deep 
interest. 

I  regard  it  with  interest,  first,  because  of  the 
work  which  its  pastors  have  done  in  America  and 
England— but  more  particularly  in  America— towards 
the  extension  of  religion  among  classes  that  we  in  our 
Church  might  find  it  difficult  to  reach.  The  Churches 
in  this  country  and  in  England,  as  I  have  before  re- 


viii.]         TO  THE  BAPTIST  MINISTERS. 


marked  in  one  of  my  sermons,  ought  to  be  all  fellow- 
labourers  in  the  Christian  work,  each  one  doing  that 
work  for  which  it  is  peculiarly  fitted.  So  it  is  that 
we  ought  to  feel  grateful  to  the  Baptist  Churches  for 
aiding  in  a  task  which  we  ourselves  could  not  accom- 
plish. This  is  the  first  ground  on  which  I  would 
express  my  obligation  to  you. 

Secondly,  you  have  alluded  to  me,  in  your  address, 
as  an  ecclesiastical  historian,  and  have  referred  to  the 
undoubted  antiquity  of  your  principal  ceremony — that 
of  immersion.  I  feel  that  here  also  we  ought  to  be 
grateful  to  you  for  having,  almost  alone  in  the 
Western  Church,  preserved  intact  this  singular  and 
interesting  relic  of  primitive  and  apostolic  times, 
which  we— you  will  forgive  me  for  saying  so— which 
we,  at  least  in  our  practice,  have  wisely  discarded. 

To  the  third  ground  of  my  interest  in  the 
Baptist  Church  you  have  also  alluded  in  your  address. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  you  have  produced  some 
Christians  of  such  eminence  and  worth  that  they  are 
reckoned  amongst  the  wealth  of  all  Christendom. 
Bunyan  the  writer,  Robert  Hall  the  preacher,  Havelock 
the  soldier,  these  are  the  men  to  the  purity  of  whose 
lives,  and  to  the  strength  of  whose  minds,  we  all  owe 
so  much.    It  is  indeed   difficult  to   learn  from  the 


5S 


ADDRESSES.— NEW  YORK.  [via 


''Pilgrim's  Progress"  whether  Bunyan  was  a  Baptist 
or  Paedobaptist,  a  Churchman  or  a  Nonconformist ;  but 
this  is  the  very  reason  why  he  is  so  important,  because 
it  shows  that  he  belonged  to  that  high  order  of  genius 
which  transcends  all  the  limits  that  divide  us  into 
different  denominations.  Again,  in  the  finest  and 
most  famous  sermons  of  Robert  Hall,  which,  unfortu- 
nately, I  am  not  old  enough  to  have  heard  myself, 
there  was  nothing  in  them  by  which  you  could  ascer- 
tain whether  he  did  or  did  not  attach  any  value  to 
immersion  in  baptism — yet  we  feel  as  we  read  those 
sermons  that  there  was  something  in  that  magnificent 
eloquence,  something  in  that  dignified  presentation  of 
the  Christian  faith,  which  brought  him  into  contact 
not  only  with  your  own  body  but  with  ours,  and  with 
all  who  have  the  heart  and  mind  to  understand  one 
so  highly  gifted.  Of  Havelock  I  will  only  say  what 
was  told  to  me  by  a  friend  of  mine,  who  spoke  to 
his  wife,  and  asked  whether  she  knew  how  he  bore 
himself  during  the  terrible  conflicts  in  India.  His 
wife  answered  :  "  I  have  not  heard  from  him  for  some 
time ;  but  I  am  sure  that,  now  as  always,  he  is  trusting 
in  God  and  doing  his  duty."  I  know  not  whether 
Havelock  in  those  moments  looked  back  with  most 
affection   to   our   Church   which   he  had  left,  or  to 


VIII.]         TO  THE  BAPTIST  MINISTERS.  59 


yours  which  he  had  joined.  But  this  answer  is  one 
in  which  we  might  all  sympathise.  "  Trusting  in  God 
and  doing  our  duty" — these  are  words  which  bind  us 
ail  together.  If  you  or  I  can  feel  that  those  who 
know  us  best  can  say  of  us  that  we  are  trusting  in 
God  and  doing  our  duty,  it  is  enough  to  teach  us 
that  this  is  a  ground  of  communion  which  neither 
the  difference  of  external  rites,  nor  the  difference  of 
seas  or  continents,  can  ever  efface. 


IX. 


THE  PROSPECTS  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF 
ENGLAND. 

SPOKEN  AT  A  RECEPTION  GIVEN  BY  THE  CLERGY  OF  THE 
PROTESTANT  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH,  IN  NEW  YORK,  NOV.  4, 
1878. 

Invited,  as  I  am,  by  the  remarks  which  have  just 
been  made,  to  say  something  on  the  prospects  of  the 
Church  of  England  in  relation  to  the  progress  of 
Liberal  Theology,  I  will  first  offer  a  few  observations 
on  its  external  fortunes.  Those  who  have  preceded 
me  have,  I  think  rightly,  spoken  of  Westminster  Abbey 
as  a  typical  likeness  of  these  relations.  So  long  as 
any  Church  or  communion  is  placed  by  the  State  in 
possession  of  a  national  building  like  Westminster 
Abbey,  so  long  there  will  be  ao  Established  Church 
in  England.  Those  who  wish  for  the  destruction  of 
the  National  Church  must,  by  a  logical  process  (as 


IX.] 


THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND. 


61 


they  have  in  fact  announced  in  the  programme  of 
their  intended  scheme  put  forth  to  the  world),  sever 
all  connection  between  that  or  other  like  national  build- 
ings and  the  offices  of  religion.  The  Abbey  might,  in 
that  case,  continue  as  a  venerable  monument,  like 
the  Round  Towers,  of  Ireland  or  the  mounds  in  the 
American  wilderness,  but  it  would  cease  to  be  filled 
with  that  glow  of  historical  and  religious  life  which 
through  its  long  history  has  distinguished  it  from  a 
mere  Walhalla  or  Museum.  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  secular  and  national  influences  which  Westminster 
Abbey  represents  have  an  important  bearing  on  the 
growth  and  spread  of  those  liberal  opinions  in  theology 
which  are  held  by  those  who,  here  or  elsewhere,  express 
their  sympathy  with  myself  as  their  spokesman.  But 
for  the  connection  of  the  Church  of  England  with  the 
State,  I  myself  should  certainly  never  have  been  Dean 
of  Westminster ;  and  the  comprehensive  and  large  asso- 
ciations which  the  institution  fosters  and  inspires  have 
been  an  immense  support  to  any  individual  convic- 
tions and  utterances  of  my  own,  which  find  in  those 
associations  so  ready  and  so  vast  an  echo. 

When  I  speak  of  my  connection  with  the  Liberal 
section  of  the  Church  of  England,  you  will  not  wish 
or  expect  that  I  should  consider  myself  here  as  repre- 


62  ADDRESSES.— NEW  YORK.  [ix. 


senting  that  section  only.  It  is  the  very  characteristic 
of  the  Church  of  England  that  anyone  who  professes 
to  express  its  more  liberal  aspirations  cannot  fail  to 
claim  kinship  with  all  the  varying  shades  of  opinion 
which  make  up  the  whole  institution,  and  which,  by 
their  close  contact  within  the  same  Church,  tend  to 
enlarge  and  correct  each  separate  tendency,  including 
the  tendency  of  Liberal  Theology  itself.  It  has  been 
a  source  of  deep  gratification  to  me  to  find  that 
the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  of  America,  in  the 
welcome  which  it  has  afforded  to  me,  has  understood 
this  position,  and  has  thereby  proved  the  genuineness 
of  its  descent  from  the  Mother  Church.  It  has  been 
almost  beyond  my  expectations  that  I  should  have 
received  such  expressions  of  sympathy,  not  merely 
from  those  whom  I  knew  to  be  in  agreement  with 
me,  but  from  those  who,  on  the  right  hand  and  on 
the  left,  might  well  have  held  aloof.  To  all  such 
expressions  I  have  felt  myself  bound  to  respond, 
not  merely  from  a  grateful  sense  of  the  kindness 
which  they  manifested,  but  from  the  conviction  that 
I  was  thus  best  acting  in  conformity  with  the  principles 
which  I  have  always  cherished  and  maintained.  It 
has  been  a  frequent  saying  of  Mr.  John  Bright — not 
an  unkindly  neighbour  of  the  Church  of  England — 


ix.]  THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND.  63 


that,  if  the  Church  were  united  within  itself,  it  would 
stand  for  ever.  On  this  I  have  often  remarked,  that 
if  it  were  in  absolute  and  uniform  agreement  through  all 
its  parts,  its  downfall  would  be  already  sealed.  I  am 
glad  to  recognise  this  same  diversity  in  the  Episcopal 
Church  of  America,  and  I  trust  that  here,  as  in  England, 
liberal  Churchmen  may  be  of  service  in  protecting  its 
more  extreme  sections  from  each  other.  And  yet  I 
feel  that  the  American  Episcopal  Church  ought  to  be, 
in  a  special  sense,  the  natural  home  of  the  broader 
sentiments  entertained  by  those  whom  I  especially 
address.  The  characteristic  changes  which  that  Church 
introduced  into  its  liturgy  when,  after  the  War  of 
Independence,  it  became  a  separate  body,  were  directly 
derived  from  the  larger  and  more  generous  elements 
which  animated  the  Church  of  England  at  the  beginning 
of  the  last  century.  That  attempt  at  enlightenment 
and  conciliation,  which  was  inspired  by  Tillotson,  in 
the  Jerusalem  Chamber  of  Westminster,  and  which, 
unfortunately,  failed  with  us  through  the  madness  of 
a  clerical  faction,  was  carried  out  here;  and  Tillotson, 
we  all  know,  was  the  most  statesmanlike  and  large- 
minded  primate  who  has  occupied  the  See  of  Canter- 
bury till  the  present  time,  when  his  place  is  worthily 
filled  by  one  whom  the  American  bishops  and  clergy 


64  ADDRESSES.— NEW  YORK.  [ix. 


have  learned  to  respect  and  to  honour  as  we  do, 
and  who  is  specially  endeared  to  them  by  the  intimate 
knowledge  which  circumstances  have  given  to  them 
of  that  deep  and  overwhelming  affliction  with  which 
it  has  pleased  God  recently  to  visit  him.  Those 
changes  to  which  I  have  referred  in  the  American 
Prayer-book,  with  hardly  more  than  one  exception,  all 
run  in  the  same  upward  direction ;  and  however  much 
the  American  Episcopal  Church  may,  from  time  to 
time,  have  been  led  astray  by  influences  similar  to 
those  which  have  retarded  the  progress  of  the  Church 
of  England,  yet  surely  it  is  not  too  much  to  hope  that 
the  force  of  that  original  impulse  and  impact  still  con- 
tinues, and  will  guide  you  safely  onwards  to  the  haven 
where  you  should  be. 

It  is  not  for  me  to  speak  in  detail  of  the  relation 
of  the  Episcopal  clergy  of  America  to  those  of  the 
other  communions  by  which  they  are  surrounded  and 
in  a  certain  sense  overshadowed.  Yet  I  have  been 
rejoiced  to  observe  so  many  indications  on  both  sides 
of  the  disappearance  of  ancient  barriers  and  the  forma- 
tion of  new  bonds  of  union.  There  is  a  passage  in 
the  Book  of  Genesis,  on  which  I  have  often  been 
accustomed  to  dwell,  as  a  likeness  of  the  course  which 
we   may   hope   that  ecclesiastical  history  may  take. 


IX.] 


THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND. 


65 


When  Isaac  digged  a  well  in  the  valley  of  Gerar,  the 
neighbouring  herdsmen  strove  with  him,  and  he  called 
the  name  of  that  well  Esek,  that  is  to  say,  "  strife  or 
controversy;"  and  they  went  on  to  another  well,  and 
there  also  there  were  accusations  and  counter  accu- 
sations, and  he  called  the  name  of  that  well  Sitna/i, 
that  is  to  say,  "calumny,"  or  "recrimination."  And 
they  went  on  and  found  another  well  in  a  large  free 
open  space,  where  each  had  room  to  feed  their  flocks 
at  will,  without  interfering  with  the  others,  and  he 
called  the  name  of  that  well  Rehoboth,  that  is  to  say,  as 
it  is  in  our  version,  "  room,"  or  "  width  "  or  "  breadth," 
or  as  it  is  called  in  the  sacred  Vulgate  of  the  ancient 
Church,  Latitudo,  or  in  plain  English,  "latitude." 
Latitude,  or  latitudinarian,  is  not  deemed  a  reproach 
by  that  venerable  translation;  it  was  deemed  the  highest 
title  of  honour  by  the  noblest  English  divines  at  the 
close  of  the  seventeenth  century.  It  may  perchance 
be  our  best  guide,  even  in  the  New  World,  to  the 
still  waters  of  comfort  and  peace. 

One  remark  in  conclusion.  I  have  been  asked 
whether,  on  some  former  occasions  of  addressing  the 
clergy  of  this  country,  I  have  not  spoken  of  the 
future  in  too  desponding  a  tone.  It  is  true  that  at 
times  I  feel  that  in  this  close  of  the  nineteenth  century 

F 


66 


A  D  DRESSES.  —NE  W  YORK. 


we  may  be  passing  through  a  temporary  eclipse.  But 
there  is  only  one  permanent  danger  which  I  seem  to 
discern  as  affecting  all  Churches  alike.  Let  me  illus- 
trate it  by  a  story  from  another  scene.  When,  in  a 
banquet  given  to  him  by  the  chief  statesmen  of  Italy, 
Mr.  Gladstone  addressed  them  in  a  powerful  speech 
on  the  glories  of  their  country,  in  that  beautiful 
Italian  tongue  of  which  he  is  so  complete  a  master, 
he  suddenly  exclaimed :  "  But  there  is  an  enemy  in 
the  midst  of  you."  They  started  ;  they  turned  to 
each  other ;  they  whispered :  "  He  means  the  Pope." 
But  for  once  Mr.  Gladstone  was  not  running  on 
ecclesiastical  controversies.  He  was  thinking  of  an 
enemy  in  the  heart  of  the  Italian  kingdom,  familiar 
to  the  mundane  experiences  in  which  his  trans- 
cendent financial  powers  made  him  more  completely 
at  home.  He  said :  "  His  name  is  Deficit."  May  I 
apply  this  saying,  not  to  the  deficiency  of  revenues 
or  receipts  of  which  he  spoke,  but  to  the  deficiency 
of  young  men  of  promise  and  power  entering  the  ranks 
of  the  Christian  ministry,  whether  in  our  Church  or 
yours,  or  any  of  the  other  numerous  Churches  of  either 
world.  I  know  not  how  far  you  are  menaced  by  this 
danger,  but  if  you  are,  or  if  there  be  any  appre- 
hension on  that  score,  I  entreat  you  to  be  constantly 


IX.]  THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND.  67 


on  your  watch  to  meet  it,  to  lose  no  opportunity  of 
removing  any  stumbling-block  or  obstacle  which  may 
deter  such  men  from  entering  your  ranks.  If  you,  if 
we,  can  thus  be  kept  on  a  level  with  the  energy,  the 
science,  the  nobleness,  and  the  genius  of  the  times  in 
which  we  live,  however  dark  may  be  the  passing 
cloud,  there  will  be  no  fear  either  for  Liberal  Theology 
or  for  the  Christian  Church  in  the  age  which  is  yet 
to  come. 

I  part  from  you  with  these,  as  I  believe,  my  last 
public  utterances  in  America.  The  welcome  which  you 
have  given  to  me  I  trust  I  may  have  the  opportunity 
of  repaying,  when  those  of  you  who  come  to  visit 
Westminster  Abbey  once  more  seek  there  the  greeting 
which  in  former  times  was  never  absent,  but  which 
will  now,  as  far  as  change  of  circumstances  permit,  be 
redoubled  by  the  grateful  recollection  of  the  hospitality 
and  the  friendship  which  have  met  me  here. 


F  1 


SERMONS. 


PREFACE 


TO  THE  FOLLOWING  SERMONS. 


ON  THE  CONDITIONS   OF  RELIGIOUS 
INQUIRY. 

The  story  of  Jacob  wrestling  with  the  angel  is  one 
which,  however  we  may  interpret  its  literal  meaning, 
undoubtedly  lends  itself  in  the  original,  even  more 
than  in  our  translation,  to  a  deeper  and  more  spiritual 
sense.  The  vision  took  place,  we  are  told,  in  the 
crisis  of  Jacob's  life.  He  was  returning  from  Meso- 
potamia. He  was  on  the  eve  of  the  meeting  with 
his  brother.  Every  incident,  almost  every  word,  is 
charged  with  a  double  meaning.  There  are  the  banks 
of  the  Jabbok,  the  "  wrestling-stream "  (such  is  the 
meaning  of  the  word),  wrestling,  forcing  its  way 
through  the  rocky  basins  of  the  deep  defile  which 
parted  the  brothers  asunder.    There  are  the  earthly 


72 


ON  THE  CONDITIONS  OF 


"messengers"  on  whose  intercession  he  relies;  there 
are  the  heavenly  "messengers"  who  are  ranged 
behind  them;  there  are  the  two  "bands"'  or  com- 
panies of  his  own  tribe,  and  compared  with  them 
are  the  two  "  bands  "  or  companies  of  angels.  There 
is  the  "face"  of  his  brother  Esau,  whom  he  longs 
but  fears  to  see  ;  there  is  the  "  face  "  of  God,  which 
also  he  fears  yet  longs  to  see.  It  is  in  the  midst 
of  these  conflicting  images,  as  in  a  dream,  that  he 
encounters  he  knows  not  whom  on  the  mountain- 
side. The  wrestling  of  the  torrent,  with  its  tangled 
thickets  and  its  rocky  boundaries,  bears  a  likeness  to 
a  yet  mightier  wrestling  of  the  human  soul  with  its 
deep  perplexities  and  sorrows.  Through  the  long 
watches  of  the  night,  the  Patriarch  is  locked  in  a 
struggle  as  for  life  and  death  with  the  mysterious 
combatant,  and  he  entreats  that  he  may  know  his 
name.  But  when  at  last  the  dawn  "rises"  (so  it  is 
expressed  in  the  original)  over  the  hills  of  Gilead, 
he  feels  that  his  whole  being  is  transfigured.  "  He 
said :  '  I  have  seen  God  face  to  face,  and  my  life  is 
preserved.'  And  he  called  the  name  of  the  place 
Peniel,  'The  Face  of  God.'"  At  that  moment  the 
twilight  of  the  dawn  "bursts"  into  full  sunlight,  and 


RELIGIOUS  INQUIRY. 


73 


he  summons  courage  to  descend  from  the  face  of  the 
mountain  height,  and  plunges  down  into  the  narrow 
glen,  and  passes  the  fatal  stream,  and  prepares  him- 
self for  the  dreaded  interview.  Always  (such  was  the 
belief  of  his  descendants)  he  bore  with  him  the  marks 
of  that  mighty  conflict,  "  for  he  halted  on  his  thigh." 
It  was  as  though  the  agony  of  the  conflict  had  dislo- 
cated even  his  earthly  frame.  Henceforth  "few  and 
evil  were  the  days  of  his  pilgrimage."  Nor  do  we  ever 
lose  entirely  the  recollection  of  the  wily  son  of  Rebekah. 
But  still  the  grander,  nobler  part  prevailed  ;  the  dark 
crafty  Jacob,  the  treacherous  supplanter  of  his  brother 
Esau,  disappeared  and  became  "  Israel,"  the  Prince  of 
God,  the  Conqueror  of  God,  the  founder  of  the  mighty 
nation  which  still  bears  his  glorious  name.  On  that 
day,  as  it  were,  in  the  depths  of  his  spiritual  being 
were  born  Moses  and  David,  Elijah  and  Isaiah,  and 
One  greater  than  all,  who  was  indeed  the  Prince  of 
God,  and  should  prevail  for  ever. 

This  encounter,  as  I  have  said,  has  been  considered 
as  the  likeness,  almost  without  an  allegory,  of  all 
spiritual  struggles.  It  is  the  groundwork  of  one  of 
the  finest  hymns  in  our  language  —  that  in  which 
Charles  Wesley  describes  the  appeal  of  the  struggling 


74 


ON  THE  CONDITIONS  OF 


human  soul  to  the  mysterious  Stranger  whom  it  meets 
on  its  passage  through  life : 

CVme,  O  thou  traveller  unknown, 
Whom  still  I  hold,  but  cannot  see. 

My  company  before  is  gone, 

And  I  am  left  alone  with  Thee. 

With  Thee  all  night  I  mean  to  stay 

And  wrestle  till  the  break  of  day. 

It  has  been  made  the  groundwork  of  an  interesting  dis- 
course by  the  greatest  English  preacher  of  this  cen- 
tury, Frederick  Robertson.  It  was  the  constant  burden 
of  a  gifted  Bishop  of  the  Scottish  Episcopal  Church, 
who,  if  any  one  of  our  day,  wrestled  with  the  questions 
of  his  time  till  his  fragile  frame  was  broken  by  the 
force  of  the  spiritual  conflict. 

There  are  indeed  numberless  experiences  of  in- 
dividual existence  which  the  story  represents  to  us.  It 
describes  the  struggles  which  every  autobiography  re- 
veals— the  entrance  on  a  new  stage  of  life,  the  decision 
on  a  profession,  the  inrush  of  new  thoughts,  the 
wrestle  with  temptations,  with  circumstances,  with 
sorrows.  It  represents  how  the  common  things  of  life 
are  to  us  the  indications  of  the  Divine  presence.  The 
"  bands  "  of  our  friends  and  companions  become  to  us 
"  bands  "  of  ministering  spirits.    In  the  chime  of  familiar 


RELIGIOUS  INQUIRY. 


75 


bells  we  hear  a  voice  bidding  us  turn  again  and  take 
heart.  In  reading  the  pathetic  scene  of  another's 
early  trials,  John  Stuart  Mill  finds  the  dried-up  foun- 
tains of  his  heart  unlocked,  and  after  years  of  prema- 
ture hardness  is  born  again  as  a  little  child.  In  the 
whispering  of  the  mountain  torrent,  as  we  find  our- 
selves in  some  long  forgotten,  but  instantly  remembered, 
scene  of  former  years — 

All  along  the  valley,  down  its  rocky  bed 

The  living  voice  to  us  is  as  the  voice  of  the  dead. 

It  describes  also  the  last  struggle  of  all,  it  may  be 
in  the  extreme  of  age  or  of  weakness,  in  the  valley  of 
the  shadow  of  death.  There  the  soul  finds  itself  alone 
on  the  mountain  ridge  overlooking  the  unknown  future; 
"  our  company  before  is  gone,"  the  kinsfolk  and  friends 
of  many  years  are  passed  over  the  dark  river,  and 
we  are  left  alone  with  God.  We  know  not  in  the 
shadow  of  the  night  who  it  is  that  touches  us — we  feel 
only  that  the  Everlasting  Arms  are  closing  us  in  ;  the 
twilight  of  the  morning  breaks,  we  are  bid  to  depart 
in  peace,  for  by  a  strength  not  our  own  we  have 
prevailed,  and  the  path  is  made  clear  before  us. 

There  is  also  another  struggle — another  wrestling — 
that  which  takes  place  between  the  human  spirit  and 


76 


ON  THE  CONDITIONS  OF 


the  vast  mysterious  problems  by  which  we  are  sur- 
rounded. In  every  age  this  struggle  takes  place,  in 
some  perhaps  more  than  in  others,  and  it  may  be  that 
such  an  age  is  ours.  "Such  questioning,"  it  has  been 
wisely  said,  "necessarily  belongs  to  every  transition 
state,*  a  transition  which  every  age  and  every  soul 
must  make  from  an  unintelligent  assent  to  a  traditional 
creed  towards  an  intelligent  assent  to  a  true  faith  :"  not 
all  light  nor  all  darkness,  but  still,  as  we  humbly  trust, 
from  darkness  into  light 

To  many,  all  such  mental  struggles  will  be 
unknown  and  unsought.  There  was  no  wrestling 
with  God  in  the  early  patriarchal  days  of  Abraham 
rnd  Isaac.  Let  those,  if  such  there  be,  who  live 
in  that  old  ancestral  peace  continue  so  to  live; 
only  let  them  not  pretend  to  wrestle  when  they  are 
in  no  difficulty.  It  is  very  rarely  indeed  that  the 
sudden  changes  from  church  to  church,  or  the  adop- 
tion of  this  or  that  strange  practice  or  form,  are  the 
results  of  deliberate  doubt  or  search.  They  are  more 
commonly  the  mere  change  of  one  fancy  for  another, 
or  a  leap  from  darkness  into   darVness.     It  is  not 


*  "  Reflections  and  Reminiscences  of  John  M'Leod  Campbell, " 
p.  256. 


RELIGIOUS  INQUIRY. 


77 


of  these  that  we  would  speak.  But  for  those  who 
are  exercised  on  the  great  problems  of  Religion  and 
Theology,  it  may  be  not  presumptuous  to  suggest  four 
homely  maxims,  impressed  upon  us  alike  by  the  Bible 
and  by  human  experience. 

(i.)  Any  such  conflict,  whether  of  mind  or  spirit, 
must  be  serious  and  in  earnest.  It  must  be  an 
anxious  endeavour  to  gain  that  which  we  seek.  "  I 
will  not  let  thee  go  except  thou  bless  me."  The 
expression  is  bold  even  to  the  verge  of  irreverence. 
But  it  is  not  irreverence,  because  nothing  is  more 
reverent  than  an  earnest  determination  of  purpose.  It 
is  not  playfulness  or  gaiety  of  heart  that  we  de- 
precate— in  God's  name,  keep  of  that  as  much  as  can 
possibly  be  had.  It  is  not  that  which  makes  a  soul  un- 
stable or  hollow.  But  asking  questions  without  waiting 
for  an  answer;  talking  merely  for  the  sake  of  victory; 
treating  sacred  and  important  questions  as  party 
flags,  to  be  hoisted  up  or  pulled  down,  according  as 
it  suits  the  ebb  and  flow  of  public  opinion — all  this  is 
no  struggle,  no  inquiry  at  all.  This  is  levity,  this  is 
foolish  jesting — mere  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit. 
Whoever  repeats  the  phrases  of  religion  or  of  irre- 
ligion,  merely  to  astonish  or  bewilder,  or  to  conceal  his 
ignorance,  or  to  gain  momentary  popularity ;  whoever 


-3 


'  ON  THE  CONDITIONS  OF 


enters  on  the  questions  of  religious  thought  without 
a  determined  intention  of  doing  or  saying  what  is  best 
for  his  own  conscience  and  for  the  consciences  of 
others,  is  a  profane  person,  by  whatever  name  he  calls 
himself.  But  a  man  who  is  possessed  with  what  the 
French  call  "  the  grand  curiosity "  of  knowing  all  that 
can  be  known,  he  who  looks  up  to  the  truly  great 
authorities  of  all  ages  and  countries,  to  the  high  in- 
telligences of  unquestioned  fame  and  worth  that  God 
has  raised  up  to  enlighten  the  world— he  has  made 
an  effort  to  enter  on  the  narrow  path,  and  to  force  his 
way  through  the  strait  gate  that  leads  to  eternal  life. 
The  very  struggle  to  him  is  good.  The  very  awe  of  these 
great  questions  produces  in  his  mind  the  reverence 
which  is  the  first  element  of  religion.  That  was  a 
true  name  which  the  old  Greeks  employed  to  describe  a 
good  man,  a  religious  man.  They  called  him  "  a  man 
of  business  " — a  man  in  earnest,  a  man  who  felt  the 
gravity  of  what  he  was  doing  and  saying.  Such  a 
man,  no  doubt,  may  get  his  conscience  warped,  or 
may  become  fanatical  or  self-deceived;  but  so  far  as 
his  seriousness  goes,  he  is  right;  so  far  as  his  serious- 
ness is  sincere,  whatever  be  his  errors,  he  is  on  the 
right  way,  and  God  is  not  far  from  him.  Not  what 
others  think  for  us,  but  what  we  are  able  to  think 


79 


for  ourselves  is  the  true  life  of  our  life.  Well  said  the 
German  poet :  "  The  secret  of  Genius  is  first,  next, 
and  without  end  to  honour  truth  by  use."  Struggle, 
wrestle  with  the  meaning  of  the  sacred  words  which 
we  employ.  Take  them  not  in  vain.  Where  we  cannot 
find  their  meaning  they  are  to  us  as  though  they 
were  not;  we  had  best  not  apply  them  at  all.  But 
in  all  those  that  are  worth  retaining — as  in  all  the 
dispensations  of  life  and  nature — there  is  what  in  the 
story  of  Jacob  is  called  a  "  Face,"  an  aspect,  of  God 
which  looks  out  at  us  from  behind  the  darkness  if 
we  gaze  steadily  in  the  right  direction. 

(2.)  Every  such  inquiry  must  be  carried  on  with  the 
conviction  that  truth  only  is  to  be  sought.  As  perfect 
love  casts  out  fear,  so  perfect  confidence  in  truth  casts, 
out  fear.  That  old  proverb  of  the  Apocryphal  Book  of 
Esdras  is  not  the  less  excellent  because  it  is  so  familiar : 
"Great  is  the  truth,  and  stronger  than  all  things." 
"  Magna  est  Veritas  et  praevalebit."  *  Jacob  is  de- 
scribed  as   struggling,    wrestling   with    the  unknown 


*  I  Esdras  iv.  35.  The  words  of  the  original  text  are  :  "  Magna 
est  Veritas  et  prcevalet."  The  change  from  the  present  tense, 
pnrvalet,  "is  strong,"  to  the  future,  frarualcbit,  "will  be  strong," 
indicates  the  increasing  conviction  in  Christendom  of  the  ultimate 
victory  of  Truth. 


80  ON  THE  CONDITIONS  OF 

mystery.  He  knew  not  what  to  make  of  it,  but  it 
prevailed  at  last  over  him  and  he  prevailed  with  it. 
It  is  the  very  likeness  of  the  search  of  a  sincere  soul 
after  Truth.  Often  the  Truth  may  elude  our  search, 
may  slip  from  our  grasp,  may  fling  us  on  the  ground; 
but  if  we  cling  fast  to  it,  some  portion  of  it  will  be 
ours  at  last,  and  we  in  its  triumph  shall  be  more  than 
conquerors.  A  venerable  divine  of  the  Roman  Church 
has,*  in  our  time,  powerfully  described  the  human 
intellect  under  the  figure  of  a  ravenous  wild  beast  that 
has  to  be  driven  back  by  the  iron  bar  of  authority, 
"  smiting  hard  and  throwing  back  the  immense  energy 
of  the  aggressive  intellect,"  lest  it  should,  as  it  were, 
devour  and  dissolve  all  things,  Divine  and  human,  in 
its  insatiable  appetite.  This  is  surely  not  the  figure 
presented  to  us  in  Jacob's  vision  or  in  the  Bible 
generally.  The  Truth  that  is  really  Divine  does  not 
smite  down  its  combatant.  Nay,  rather  it  allows  itself 
to  be  embraced,  repulsed,  embraced  again,  seized 
now  by  this  side,  now  by  that,  lifted  up,  pressed, 
challenged  to  surrender.  "Come,  let  us  reason  to- 
gether." "The  Lord  will  plead  with  Israel."  "We 
can  do  nothing  against  the  Truth,  but  for  the  Truth." 


•  Dr.  Newman's  "  Apologia,"  pp.  3S1,  382. 


RELIGIOUS  INQUIRY. 


81 


The  human  intellect  has  had  placed  before  it  by 
Him  who  made  it,  one  object  and  one  only,  worthy 
of  its  efforts,  and  that  is  Truth — Truth,  not  for  the 
sake  of  any  ulterior  object,  however  high  or  holy,  but 
Truth  for  its  own  sake.  We  hope,  we  trust,  we  humbly 
believe,  that  Truth  will  in  the  end  be  found  to  coin- 
cide with  goodness,  with  holiness,  with  grace,  with 
humility,  with  all  the  other  noblest  aspirations  of  the 
human  spirit.  But  if  we  think  and  reason  on  these 
high  matters  at  all,  we  must  seek  and  desire  Truth 
even  as  though  it  existed  by  and  for  itself  alone.  And 
the  most  excellent  service  that  Churches  and  pastors, 
authorities  of  State  or  of  Religion,  universities  or 
teachers,'  can  render  to  the  human  reason  in  this 
arduous  enterprise  is  not  to  restrain,  nor  to  blindfold 
it,  but  to  clear  aside  every  obstacle,  to  open  wide  the 
path,  to  chase  away  the  phantoms  that  stand  in  the 
road.  Above  all,  it  is  alike  the  high  calling  of  true  philo- 
sophy and  Christian  civilisation,  to  rise  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  blinding,  bewildering,  entangling  influence 
of  the  spirit  of  party.  It  was  once  said  by  Archbishop 
Whately  that  the  chief  evil  of  the  modern  Church  of 
Rome  was  not  transubstantiation,  or  the  worship  of 
the  saints,  or  purgatory,  or  -any  other  of  the  special 
opinions  held  by  its  members,  but  the  fact  that  it  was 

G 


82 


ON  THE  CONDITIONS  OF 


"  a  great  party,"  inspired  by  the  same  motives  and 
guided  by  the  same  principles  as  bind  together  sects 
and  parties,  political  or  other,  throughout  the  world. 
So  far  as  the  Church  of  Rome  or  any  other  Church 
is  not  this,  even  its  errors  are  comparatively  innocent ; 
so  far  as  it  is  this,  its  very  truths  become  mischievous. 
"  Whatever  retards  a  spirit  of  inquiry,"  said  Robert 
Hall,  "  is  favourable  to  error.  Whatever  promotes  it,  is 
favourable  to  truth.  But  nothing  has  greater  tendency 
to  obstruct  the  exercise  of  free  inquiry  than  a  spirit  of 
party.  There  is  in  all  sects  and  parties  a  constant 
fear  of  being  eclipsed.  It  becomes  a  point  of  honour 
with  the  leaders  of  parties  to  defend  and  support  their 
respective  peculiarities  to  the  last,  and,  as  a  natural 
sequence,  to  shut  their  ears  against  all  the  pleas  by 
which  they  may  be  assailed.  If  we  seek  for  the  reason 
of  the  facility  with  which  scientific  improvements  esta- 
blish themselves  in  preference  to  religious,  we  shall 
find  it  in  the  absence  of  party  combination."  No 
doubt  even  the  domain  of  science  has  not  been  free 
from  the  passions  and  personalities  of  party  teachers; 
but  the  great  Nonconformist  whom  I  have  just  cited 
had  good  ground — had,  I  may  almost  say,  Divine 
authority — for  directing  his  special  warning  to  the 
religious  world.     This  spirit  of  combination  for  party 


RELIGIOUS  INQUIRY. 


83 


purposes,  and  this  alone,  is  what  the  New  Testament 
calls  "heresy."  This  it  is  that  constitutes  the  leading 
danger  of  synods  and  councils,  which,  by  their  very 
constitution,  become  almost  inevitably  the  organs, 
never  of  full  and  impartial  truth,  almost  always  of 
misleading  ambiguities  which  tend  rather  to  darkness 
than  to  light,  rather  to  confusion  than  to  union. 

(3.)  We  must  in  our  inquiry  be  on  the  watch  as  far 
as  we  can,  not  for  something  to  attack,  but  for  some- 
thing to  admire ;  not  for  something  to  pull  down,  but 
for  something  to  build  up.  "  Prove  all  things,"  says 
the  Apostle,  and  he  almost  immediately  afterwards 
adds,  "abstain  from  every  kind*  of  evil,"  that  is, 
from  every  kind  of  evil,  however  specious,  however 
religious  may  be  its  appearance.  This,  no  doubt,  is 
an  important  maxim.  The  negative  side  of  Christianity, 
the  formation  of  an  atmosphere  in  which  whole  classes 
of  falsehood  have  been  unable  to  live,  is  a  merit  which 
has  been  hardly  enough  appreciated.  But  the  more 
direct  maxim  of  the  Apostle  is  still  more  important: 
"Prove  all  things;  hold  fast  that  which  is  good."  It  has 
been  too  often  the  conventional  strategy  of  theological 
argument,  in  dealing  with  books  or  persons  with  whom 


*  I  Thess.  v.  21,  22  (in  the  original). 

G  2 


84 


we  differ,  to  give  no  quarter  ■  to  treat  them  as  wizards 
were  treated  down  to  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, as  though  they  were  embodied  and  absolute  evil — 
as  if  the  moment  we  find  ourself  face  to  face  with  such  a 
book  or  such  a  line  of  argument,  the  first  thing  to  be 
done  is  to  tear  it  to  pieces,  and  pick  out  all  its  worst 
parts,  and  take  for  granted  the  worst  possible  con- 
struction. Far  be  it  from  us  to  deny  that  there  are 
books  so  worthless,  characters  and  principles  so  detest- 
able, that  they  demand  all  the  indignation  of  which  the 
human  soul  is  capable.  But  these  are  exceptions.  Far 
oftener,  when  we  are  perplexed  and  distressed,  the 
impression  is  as  of  the  vision  in  the  Book  of  Job : 
"Fear  cometh  upon  me  and  trembling;  a  spirit  passed 
before  me,  but  I  could  not  discern  the  form  thereof; 
the  image  was  before  mine  eyes,  and  there  was  silence." 
In  the  larger  part  of  such  books  as  from  their  fame 
and  weight  demand  to  be  read,  as  there  are  none 
which  are  uniformly  good,  so  there  are  very  few 
which  are  uniformly  evil.  In  all  we  must  discriminate. 
Even  the  Bible  itself  has  its  gradations.  The  Old 
Testament,  great  as  it  is,  is  not  so  Divine  as  the 
New.  The  Apocalypse,  splendid  as  are  its  imagery 
and  its  purpose,  is  not  so  edifying  as  the  Gospels  or 
the  Psalms.    It  was  said  of  the  Koran  that  it  had 


RELIGIOUS  INQUIRY. 


85 


two  faces,  one  of  a  beast,  to  scandalise  the  weak, 
one  of  a  seraph,  to  attract  the  faithful.  That,  to  a 
certain  extent,  is  the  case  even  in  the  Bible  j  it  is 
the  case  certainly  with  all  other  good  books.  There 
is  the  face  of  the  beast  which  may  terrify ;  but  there 
is  the  face  of  the  seraph  to  delight  us,  and  he  is 
the  best  inquirer  who,  while  he  acknowledges  the  face 
of  the  beast,  yet  turns  away  from  it  to  gaze  chiefly 
on  the  face  of  the  seraph.  We  are  justly  indignant 
with  ignorant  or  foolish  scoffers,  who  in  speaking 
of  the  Bible  speak  only  of  its  obscure,  harsh,  and 
perplexing  passages;  who  omit  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  and  speak  only  of  the  questionable  acts 
of  the  Patriarchs ;  who  omit  the  glory  of  the 
hundred  and  nineteenth  Psalm,  and  dwell  only 
on '  the  curses  of  the  hundred  and  ninth ;  who 
speak  only  of  the  rare  anathemas  and  pass  over 
the  long-suffering  love,  of  the  Parables  in  the 
Gospels  or  of  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul.  But  we 
should  be  no  less  indignant  with  ourselves  or  with 
others,  if,  in  speaking  or  reading  of  books  of  science, 
books  of  philosophy,  books  of  religion,  we  look  at 
them  only  to  extract  the  evil,  the  controversial,  the 
offensive,  the  frivolous;  and  overlook  the  genius,  the 
wisdom,  the  knowledge,  the  goodness,  which,  whilst 


86 


ON  THE  CONDITIONS  OF 


disagreeing  ever  so  much,  we  might  yet  discover  in 
them  for  our  eternal  benefit.  It  is  astonishing  how 
vast  a  loss  we  sustain  for  our  spiritual  life  by  thinking 
only  how  we  can  destroy,  attack,  and  assail,  instead 
of  thinking  how  we  can  build  up,  define,  or  edify. 
There  is  not  a  book  in  the  world,  however  great  or 
good,  which  would  stand  the  test  of  being  taken  only 
in  its  weaker  points.  There  are  very  few  books  of 
any  name  or  fame  in  the  world  which  will  not  confirm 
our  faith  or  raise  our  minds,  if  judged,  not  by  passion 
or  prejudice,  but  on  their  own  merits,  "according  to 
righteous  judgment."  Jacob  wrestled  to  the  end 
through  darkness  and  light,  and  in  the  end  he  felt 
that  his  unknown  enemy  was  no  enemy  at  all,  but 
the  same  vision  of  angels  that  he  had  seen  at  Bethel, 
the  kind  and  merciful  face  of  God,  the  God  of*  his 
father  Abraham,  and  of  his  father  Isaac. 

(4.)  Yet  one  more  rule.  Let  us  enter  on  these  in- 
quiries, not  in  despair,  but  in  hope.  There  is  doubtless 
enough  to  discourage.  Sometimes  we  think  that  we 
are  about  to  be  overwhelmed  by  a  general  return  of 
forgotten  superstitions,  sometimes  by  a  general  chaos 
of  incredulity ;  sometimes  our  course  seems  darkened 
by  an  eclipse  of  faith,  sometimes  by  an  eclipse  of 
reason.    Yet,  on  the  whole,  the  history  of  mankind 


RELIGIOUS  INQUIRY. 


S7 


justifies  us  in  hoping  that  as  in  the  moral,  so  also  in 
the  intellectual  condition  of  the  race,  in  regard  to  these 
higher  spiritual  truths,  our  light  is  not  altogether 
swallowed  up  in  darkness,  that  the  good  cannot  be 
and  is  not  altogether  lost,  that  the  evil,  the  error,  the 
superstition,  that  has  once  disappeared,  even  if  it 
returns  from  time  to  time,  will  not  again  permanently 
rule  over  us  as  heretofore.  Christianity  itself  goes 
through  these  struggles.  In  its  Divine  aspect  it  wrestles 
with  man.  In  its  human  aspect  it  wrestles  with  God. 
It  has  within  it,  like  the  Patriarch,  two  natures — the 
crafty,  earth-born  Jacob,  the  lofty,  heaven-aspiring 
Israel. 

Only  we  must  acknowledge,  let  us  rather  say  we 
must  insist  on,  two  conditions,  if  we  would  draw  hope 
from  the  experience  of  religious  history.  First,  we 
must  acknowledge  the  immense  changes  through  which 
Christianity  has  passed.  It  is  because  there  is  hardly 
any  one  form  of  Christian  truth  which  has  been  held 
"  always,  everywhere,  and  by  everybody,"  that  we  seem 
to  see  how  it  may  at  last  assimilate  to  itself  all  the 
good  and  ail  the  truth  which  th :  world  contains,  and 
which,  though  not  in  it,  are  yet  of  it.  So  far  as  it 
has  survived  the  conflicts  of  eighteen  centuries,  it  has 
been  not  by  adhering  rigidly  to  i.he  past,  but  by  casting 


83 


ON  THE  CONDITIONS  OF 


off  its  worser  and  grosser  elements,  and  taking  up  in 
each  age  something  of  that  higher  element  which  each 
age  had  to  give.  It  has  survived  the  corruptions  and 
superstitions  which  it  inherited  from  the  Roman  Empire, 
and  has  carried  off  in  the  struggle  the  elements  of 
Roman  civilisation.  It  has  survived  the  miserable 
controversies  of  the  fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  centuries, 
and  has  carried  off  from  its  earlier  age  the  first  germs 
of  liturgical  worship  and  the  memory  of  the  martyrs. 
It  has  survived  the  barbarous  fancies  and  cruelties  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  and  carried  off  with  it  the  marvels 
of  mediaeval  art.  It  has  survived  the  fierce  conflicts 
of  the  Reformation,  and  has  carried  off  with  it  the 
light  of  freedom,  of  conscience,  and  of  knowledge. 
It  has  survived  the  shock  of  the  French  Revolution, 
and  has  carried  off  with  it  the  toleration  and  the 
justice  of  the  eighteenth  century.  It  has  survived  the 
alarms  which  were  excited  at  the  successive  appear- 
ance of  Astronomy,  Geology,  Physiology,  Historical 
Criticism,  and  has  carried  off  with  it  a  deeper  insight 
into  nature  and  into  the  Bible.  In  each  of  these 
anxious  wrestling  matches  it  has,  like  the  Patriarch, 
seen  the  Face  of  God,  and  its  life  has  been  not  only 
preserved  but  transfigured.  Jacob,  the  old,  treacherous, 
exclusive  Jacob,  has  with  each  of  these  receded  ;  Israel 


RELIGIO  US  1NO  UIR  Y. 


89 


the  princely,  the  venerable,  the  loving  father  of  the 
chosen  people,  has  gradually  prevailed. 

And  there  is  the  second  condition,  that  we  must 
look  for  the  true  face  of  our  religion  in  the  face  of 
those  who  have  best  represented  it.  We  sometimes 
claim,  and  justly  claim,  as  the  glory  of  our  faith,  that 
it  has  attracted  to  itself  the  strength  of  intellects  such 
as  Shakespeare  and  Newton,  Pascal  and  Rousseau, 
Erasmus  and  Spinosa,  Goethe  and  Walter  Scott.  But 
then  do  we  sufficiently  remember  what  is  the  aspect  of 
Christianity  which  commanded  the  reverential  attention 
of  men  so  different  each  from  each?  Was  it  the 
Christianity  of  Nicsea,  or  Geneva,  or  Westminster, 
or  Augsburg,  or  the  Vatican?  No.  It  was,  by  the 
very  nature  of  the  case,  something  of  a  far  more 
delicate  texture,  of  a  far  deeper  root. 

Again,  we  may  find  an  indication  of  the  permanent 
character  of  Christianity  when  we  ask  what  is  the  form 
of  it  defended  by  its  chief  apologists.  The  Chris- 
tianity for  which  Paley  argued  in  his  "  Evidences,"  and 
Lardner  in  his  "Credibilia," and  Butler  in  his  "Sermons" 
and  "Analogy,"  and  Pascal  in  his  "Thoughts,"  and 
Channing  in  his  "Discourses" — was  this  the  Calvinist, 
or  the  Lutheran,  or  the  Wesleyan,  or  the  Tridentine, 
or  the  Racovian  Creed?     No;  for  to  each  on,e  of 


9° 


ON  THE  CONDITIONS  OF 


those  stout  champions  of  the  faith,  one  or  other  of 
those  forms  would  have  been  as  revolting  as  that 
which  they  advocated  was  precious  to  them. 

Again,  it  is  the  religion  which  has  inspired  the 
course  of  states  and  nations.  Read  the  concise  but 
subtle  account  given  of  the  influence  of  Christianity 
on  civilisation  by  the  present  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  or 
the  more  extended  examination  of  it  in  the  history 
of  Latin  Christianity  by  his  famous  predecessor — read 
either  of  these  works,  or  watch,  if  we  prefer  it,  the 
gradual  development  of  Christian  art,  from  the  Good 
Shepherd  of  the  Catacombs  to  the  Transfiguration  of 
Raphael,  from  the  majestic  basilica  to  the  soaring 
lines  of  the  Gothic  cathedral.  Whilst  we  acknowledge 
in  them  the  triumphant  progress  of  what  is  best  in 
Christianity,  shall  we  not  also  acknowledge  that  it  is 
a  progress  to  which  the  Councils,  the  Confessions, 
even  the  Fathers  and  Schoolmen,  have  contributed 
almost  nothing,  and  the  general  spirit  of  the  race  and 
the  faith  almost  everything? 

And  is  not  the  religion  which  animated  these 
higher  intelligences  and  these  wider  spheres  the  same 
which  has  animated  the  poor,  the  humble,  the  child- 
like, the  saintlike  of  all  persuasions?  We  do  not 
deny  that  at  particular  epoch*  of  excitement,  the  tern- 


RELIGIOUS  INQUIRY. 


9' 


porary  opinions  of  particular  schools  and  times  may 
have  filled  the  soul  with  heavenly  fervour,  that  the 
doctrines  of  the  "  Invention  of  the  Cross,"  or  "  the 
Sacred  Heart,"  or  "  the  Immaculate  Conception  " — of 
"Imputed  Righteousness,"  of  "Sudden  Conversion," 
of  "  Episcopal  Succession,"  of  "  Non-intrusion,"  may 
have  swayed  whole  assemblies  of  men  with  one  com- 
mon impulse,  or  lighted  up  the  last  moments  of  de- 
parting saints  with  celestial  energy.  But  these  have 
been  the  mere  wreaths  of  foam  on  the  waves  of 
enthusiasm.  The  perpetual  undercurrent  of  devotion 
has  been  of  another  sort.  "Pray  for  me,"  said  an 
eminent  French  pastor  on  his  death-bed,  "  that  I 
may  have  the  elementary  graces."  Those  elementary 
graces  are  to  be  found  in  the  great  moral  principles 
which  lie  at  the  bottom  of  the  barbarous  phraseology 
in  which  the  sentiments  of  the  poor,  living  or 
dying,  are  often  expressed.  It  was  but  recently*  that 
there  was  recorded  the  saying  of  an  old  Scottish 
Methodist,  who  in  his  earlier  years  had  clung  vehe- 
mently to  one  or  other  of  the  two  small  sects  on 
either  side  of  the  street:  "The  street  I'm  now  travel- 
ling in,  lad,  has  nae  sides;  and  if  power  were  given 


*  "  Reminiscences  of  the  Pen-Folk,  by  One  who  knew  them,"  p.  41. 


92  ON  THE  CONDITIONS  OF 

me,  I  would  preach  purity  of  life  mair,  and  purity 
of  doctrine  less  than  I  did."  "Are  you  not  a  little 
heretical  at  your  journey's  end?"  said  his  interlo- 
cutor. "  I  kenna.  Names  have  not  the  same  terror 
on  me  they  once  had,  and  since  I  was  laid  by  here 
alone,  I  have  had  whisperings  of  the  still  small  voice, 
telling  me  that  the  footfall  of  faiths  and  their  wranglings 
will  ne'er  be  heard  in  the  Lord's  kingdom  whereunto 
I  am  nearing.  And  as  love  cements  all  differences, 
I'll  perhaps  find  the  place  roomier  than  I  thought  in 
times  by-past." 

And  finally,  the  converging  testimony  rendered  by 
so  many  different  experiences  towards  the  triumph  of  a 
higher  Christianity  is  crowned  by  the  testimony  of  the 
Bible  itself.  That  the  theology  of  the  Bible  is  some- 
thing beside  and  beyond,  something  greater  and  vaster 
than  the  theology  of  each  particular  Church  or  age,  is 
proved  by  the  fact  that  on  the  one  hand  it  has  never 
been  found  sufficient  for  the  purposes  of  tests  and 
polemics,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  that  whenever  the 
different  schools  of  theologians  have  been  brought 
together  on  its  platform,  either  for  selecting  extracts  for 
the  public  services  of  the  Church,  or  for  revising  its 
translations,  the  points  of  division  have  fallen  aside,  the 
points  of  union  have  come  to  light,  and  the  points  of 


RELIGIOUS  INQUIRY. 


93 


discussion  have  for  the  most  part  had  no  bearing  on  the 
divisions  or  the  theories  of  Christendom.  It  is  in  the 
various  aspects  of  the  theology  of  the  Bible — which  is 
also  the  theology  of  European  literature — the  theology 
of  great  men,  the  theology  of  the  saints,  and  the 
theology  of  the  poor  and  of  little  children,  that  we  may 
hope  to  see  the  Face  of  God. 

We  complain  of  the  unfairness  of  the  German  critic 
who  attacked  the  possibility  of  a  Christian  faith  by 
directing  his  artillery  against  the  coarsest  and  grossest 
forms  in  which  that  faith  has  been  supported  by  any 
of  its  adherents.  But  this  should  be  a  solemn  warning 
to  us  to  see  how  far  we  have  ourselves  identified  it 
with  those  forms.  We  smile  at  the  narrowness  of  the 
English  philosopher  who  regarded  Christianity  as  the 
completest  development  of  human  wickedness,  because 
he  fixed  his  mind  on  one  particular  doctrine  sometimes 
preached  in  its  name.  But  this  should  be  a  solemn 
warning  to  us,  to  see  how  far  such  a  doctrine  is  one 
for  which  we  ourselves  have  contended  as  essential  to 
the  faith.  True  Christianity  is  beyond  the  reach  of 
such  attacks  or  such  defences.  Those  who  have 
watched  the  effects  of  sunrise  on  the  Alpine  ranges  will 
remember  the  dark  and  chill  aspect  of  the  wide  land- 
scape in  the  moment  preceding  the  dawn.     At  last 


94 


ON  THE  CONDITIONS  OF 


there  arose  at  once  in  the  western  and  the  eastern 
heavens  a  colour,  a  brightness,  a  lightness — varying, 
diffused,  indefinite,  but  still  spreading  and  brightening 
and  lightening,  over  the  whole  scene.  Then,  lias 
in  a  moment,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,"  the  highest 
summits  of  the  range  of  snow  burst  from  pale  death 
into  roseate  life,  and  every  slope  and  crest  became 
as  clear  and  bright  as  before  they  had  been  dark  and 
dull ;  and  meanwhile  the  same  light  was  creeping 
round  the  mists  of  the  plain  and  the  exhalations  of 
the  lakes,  and  they  too  were  touched  by  gold,  and 
every  shape  and  form  yielded  to  the  returning  glow. 
Such  is  an  image  of  the  rise  of  true  religion,  and  there- 
fore also  of  true  theology,  shadowy,  diffused,  expansive 
as  the  dawn,  yet  like  the  dawn  striking  with  irresistible 
force  now  here,  now  there,  first  on  the  highest  intel- 
ligences, then  on  the  world  at  large,  till  at  length  the 
whole  atmosphere  is  suffused  with  its  radiance,  and 
the  shades  of  night  have  melted  we  hardly  know  how 
or  where. 

Such  is  the  process  by  which  the  great  regenerating 
truths  of  religion  have  made  their  way,  and  still  make 
their  way  into  the  heart  of  man — truths  not  the  less 
religious  because  they  have  often  come  from  seemingly 
opposite  quarters,  truths  which  gain  their  place  the 


RELIGIOUS  INQUIRY. 


95 


more  certainly  because  they  come  not  in  a  polemic, 
but  a  pacific  garb,  not  conquering,  but  subduing;  not 
attacking  error,  but  creating  a  light  in  which  the 
shadows  insensibly  flee  away.  "  Falsehood  can  only 
be  said  to  be  killed  when  it  is  replaced."  Truth  van- 
quishes only  when  it  can  enlist  the  religious  enthusiasm 
that  is  too  often  the  heritage  of  error.  Enthusiasm 
can  only  be  fully  commended  when  it  is  enlisted  on 
behAlf  of  the  wider  and  nobler  instincts  of  the  good 
and  wise  throughout  mankind. 

When  the  struggle  is  drawing  to  its  end,  when  the 
day  breaks  and  the  sun  rises,  there  will  have  been 
some  who  in  that  struggle  have  seen  the  Face  of  God. 


!. 

THE  EAST  AND   THE  WEST. 

PREACHED   IN   TRINITY   CHURCH,    BOSTON,    SUNDAY  MORNING, 

SEPTEMBER  22,  1878. 

In  the  ninth  verse  of  the  hundred  and  thirty-ninth 
Psalm  are  these  words  :  "  If  I  take  the  wings  of  the 
morning,  and  dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  sea, 
even  there  shall  Thy  hand  lead  me,  and  Thy  right  hand 
shall  hold  me." 

In  this  utterance  of  the  Psalmist,  as  in  the  whole 
Psalm,  the  most  simple  meaning  is  the  expression  of 
belief  in  the  omnipresent  power  of  God.  The  traveller 
who  passes  from  one  quarter  of  the  globe  to  another, 
feels  that  the  encircling  sky  which  girdles  in  the  ocean 
is  but  a  type  of  the  unseen  Power  that  surrounds  us 
all.  It  is  the  same  truth  as  that  expressed  in  the  last 
worls  of  one  of  the  earliest  English  navigators  in 
American  waters:  "Heaven  is  as  near  to  us  on  the  sea 
as  en  the  land."   The  philanthropist,  whose  wide  charity 


97 


embraces  within  its  grasp  the  savage  and  the  civilised 
man,  the  white  man  and  the  negro,  feels  that  the  hand 
of  God  is  with  him  in  his  enterprises,  because  in  the 
face  of  all  his  fellow-men  he  recognises,  however  faintly 
and  feebly  delineated,  the  image  of  the  likeness  of  God. 
Howard  and  Wilberforce,  Eliot  and  Channing,  were 
alike  sustained  by  the  thought  that,  in  the  widest  diver- 
sities of  human  nature,  and  in  the  lowest  depths  of 
human  degradation,  God  was  with  their  efforts,  because 
in  the  better  part  of  every  human  being  there  was  a 
spark  of  the  Divine  spirit.  The  philosopher  who 
endeavours  to  trace  out  the  unity  of  mankind,  and 
the  unity  of  all  created  things,  consciously  or  un- 
consciously expresses  the  same  truth ;  namely,  that 
our  Maker's  eye  saw  our  substance  yet  being  im- 
perfect, and  that  "  in  His  book  were  all  our  members 
written,  which  day  by  day  were  fashioned"  and 
evolved,  "  while  as  yet  there  were  none  of  them," 
while  all  was  as  yet  rudimental  and  undeveloped, 
alike  in  the  individual  and  in  the  race.  The  heart- 
stricken,  lonely,  doubting  sufferer,  who  sees  only  a 
step  before  him,  who  can  but  pray,  "  Lead,  kindly 
Light,  amid  the  encircling  gloom  " — he  too  can  echo 
the  words  of  the  Psalmist :  "  The  darkness  is  no  dark- 
ness to  Thee ;  the  darkness  and  light  to  Thee  are 

H 


98 


SERMONS.— BOSTON. 


both  alike."  "Though  He  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust 
in  Him." 

But  in  the  especial  form  of  the  words  of  the  text 
there  is  a  peculiar  force,  which  it  is  my  purpose  on 
this  occasion  to  bring  before  you.  The  Psalmist 
wishes  to  indicate  that  God  was  to  be  found  in  those 
regions  of  the  earth  into  which  it  was  least  likely 
that  any  Divine  influence  should  penetrate ;  and  he 
expresses  it  by  saying :  "  If  I  were  to  take  the  wings 
of  the  morning,  if  I  were  to  mount  on  the  out- 
spreading radiance  which  in  the  eastern  hea.  ens  pre- 
cedes the  rise  of  dawn,  if  I  were  to  follow  the  sun 
on  his  onward  course,  and  pass  with  him  over  land 
and  ocean  till  I  reach  the  uttermost  parts  of  the 
sea,  far  away  in  the  distant  and  unknown  '  West' " — 
for  in  the  original  the  two  words  mean  the  same 
thing — "even  there  also,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  the 
hand  of  God  will  lead  us,  the  right  hand  of  God 
will  hold  us ;  even  there  also,  beyond  the  shadows 
of  the  setting  of  the  sun,  even  there,  beyond  the 
farthest  horizon,  the  farthest  West  of  the  farthest  sea, 
will  be  found  the  Presence  which  leaps  over  the 
most  impassable  barriers."  To  the  Psalmist,  living  in 
Palestine,  living  in  those  regions  which  were  then 
tiie  sole  seat,  not  only  of  religion,  but  of  civilisation 


I.] 


THE  EAST  AND  THE  WEST. 


99 


and  knowledge  also,  this  expression  was  the  most 
forcible  mode  which  he  could  adopt  of  saying  that  no- 
where in  the  wide  world  could  he  wander  from  the 
care  of  the  Almighty ;  and  in  so  saying  he  has, 
whether  intentionally  or  not,  given  utterance  to  a 
truth  to  which  the  other  parts  of  the  Bible  bear 
witness,  but  which  receives  its  full  confirmation  in 
the  New  Testament,  and  its  full  realisation  in  the 
history  of  Christendom  and  of  the  modern  world. 
That  which  seemed  to  him  so  portentous  as  to  be 
almost  incredible,  has  become  one  of  the  familiar, 
we  might  almost  say  one  of  the  fundamental,  axioms 
of  our  religious  and  social  existence.  "Not  only  in 
the  East"  —  so  we  may  venture  to  give  his  words 
their  fullest  and  widest  meaning — "  not  only  in  the 
East,  consecrated  by  patriarchal  tradition  and  usage, 
but  in  the  unknown  and  distant  islands  and  seas 
of  the  West,  the  power  of  God  shall  be  felt  as  a 
sustaining  help  and  guiding  hand." 

True  religion,  the  point  of  contact  between  the 
East  and  the  West,  this  is  the  thought  upon  which 
I  propose  to  dwell.  And,  first,  let  us  observe  the 
actual  fact  in  human  experience.  The  contrast  be- 
tween the  East  and  West  is  one  of  the  most  vivid 
which  strikes  the  mind  of  man.    Of  the  great  geo 

H  2 


IOO 


SERMONS.  -BOSTON. 


graphical  impressions  left  even  on  the  most  casual 
observer,  none  is  deeper  than  that  which  is  produced 
when  a  child  of  Western  civilisation  se.'s  foot  on  the 
shores  of  the  Eastern  world.  And  so  in  history,  as 
has  been  observed  by  a  profound  student,  two  dis- 
tinct streams  of  human  interest  have  always  followed 
the  race  of  Shem  and  the  race  of  Japhet ;  but  the 
turning  points,  the  critical  moments  of  their  history, 
have  been  when  the  two  streams  have  crossed  each 
other,  and  met,  as  on  a  few  great  occasions,  in 
conflict  or  in  union.  It  is  the  very  image  which  is 
presented  to  us  in  the  splendid  vision  of  the  Evan- 
gelical Prophet  in  the  sixtieth  chapter  of  the  book  of 
Isaiah.  The  seer  lifts  up  his  eyes,  and  beholds  on 
one  side  all  the  nations  of  the  East,  with  all  the 
peculiarities  of  custom  and  of  dress  such  as  have 
endured  from  his  time  to  ours  —  dromedaries  and 
camels,  golden  ornaments  from  India,  clouds  of  in- 
cense from  Arabia,  flocks  and  herds  of  the  wandering 
tribes  of  Arabia  and  Tartary — all  crowding  to  receive 
the  blessings  of  the  future.  And  this  was  fulfilled; 
for  we  are  never  allowed  to  forget  that  Christ  was 
born  of  an  Eastern  nation,  clothed  in  Eastern  dress, 
speaking  in  an  Eastern  language,  familiar  with  Eastern 
sky  and  land.    He  was  of  the  seed  of  Abraham,  the 


t]  THE  EAST  AND  THE  WEST.  101 


first  wanderer  from  the  Eastern  hills ;  of  Isaac,  brother 
of  the  Arabian  Ishmael ;  of  David  and  Solomon, 
Oriental  kings.  To  His  Eastern  birthplace  the  Churches 
of  the  West  have  ever  turned  with  peculiar  reverence, 
and  his  Eastern  home  and  Eastern  tomb  have  been 
the  points  around  which  the  conflicts  of  Europe 
again  and  again,  and  even  in  our  own  recent  time, 
have  turned. 

There  is  an  interest,  as  of  our  childish  days,  with 
which  we  cannot  but  regard  the  cradle  of  our  race  and 
of  our  faith,  an  interest  not  the  less  keen  because  that 
early  sunrise  of  mankind  has  now  been  left  so  very  far 
behind.  The  wings  of  the  morning  may  flag  and  fail, 
but  not  so  the  purpose  of  God.  It  extends  to  the  noon 
and  to  the  evening  no  less.  We  must  not  look  east- 
ward, we  must  not  look  backward,  if  we  would  know 
the  true  strength  of  human  progress  and  of  Christ's 
religion.  Westward,  far  into  the  westward  sea,  the 
Prophet  looked,  when,  after  beholding  the  dromedaries 
and  camels  of  Arabia  coming  from  the  East,  he 
turned  to  that  distant  horizon,  and  exclaimed :  "  Who 
are  these  that  fly  as  a  cloud,  and  as  the  doves  to 
their  windows?"  "The  isles" — that  is,  the  isles,  and 
coasts,  and  promontories,  and  creeks,  and  bays  of 
the   Mediterranean   and  Atlantic   shores — "  the  isles 


102 


SERMONS.— BOSTON. 


[I. 


shall  wait  for  him,  and  the  ships  of  Tarshish  first" 
Tarshish,  that  is,  the  West,  with  all  its  vessels  of 
war  and  its  vessels  of  merchandise ;  the  ships  of 
Tarshish  first,  of  Phoenicia  and  Carthage  and  Spain 
- — these  first  brought  the  shores  of  Cornwall,  the  name 
of  Britain,  within  the  range  of  the  old  civilised  world. 
All  these,  with  their  energy  and  activity,  were  to  build 
up  the  walls,  and  pour  their  wealth  through  the  gates 
of  the  heavenly  Jerusalem.  And  so  in  fact  it  has 
been.  Westward  went  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles, 
when  starting  from  the  coast  of  Syria  he  embarked 
on  what  a  great  French  writer  has  called  the  "  Chris- 
tian Odyssey;"  westward  to  that  island  which  alone 
emerged  on  the  horizon  of  the  Israelite  as  he 
looked  from  the  heights  of  Lebanon,  the  spot  which 
was  to  him  the  sole  representative  of  the  westward 
races,  the  isle  of  Chittim,  the  isle  of  Cyprus,  des- 
tined, perchance,  in  our  later  day  to  give  back  to 
the  Eastern  races  what  it  once  received  from  them. 
Westward  the  Apostle  still  advanced  when  he  crossed 
over  from  Asia  into  Europe,  and  came  into  contact 
with  the  civilisation  of  Greece;  westward  yet  again 
when  he.  reached  the  mighty  capital  of  the  Western 
dominion  ;  westward  farther  still  when  he  stretched 
his   yearning  gaze  toward  what  was  then  called  the 


j.]  THE  EAST  AND  THE  WEST.  103 

last  limit  of  the  world,  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  the 
extreme  border  of  Spain.  And  so  it  has  been 
through  the  long  history  of  Christendom.  The 
Eastern  Churches,  in  spite  of  all  their  manifold  in- 
terest, have  not  been  the  true  centres  of  Christianity. 
They  may  have  their  destiny  and  their  mission ;  but 
it  is  in  Italy,  in  France,  in  Germany,  in  England,  in 
America,  that  the  hopes  of  Christian  civilisation 
rest.  Christianity,  born  in  the  East,  has  become  the 
religion  of  the  West  even  more  than  the  religion  of 
the  East.  Only  by  travelling  from  its  early  home 
has  it  grown  to  its  full  stature.  The  more  it  has 
adapted  itself  to  the  wants  of  the  new-born  nations, 
which  it  embraces,  the  more  has  it  resembled  the 
first  teaching  and  character  of  its  Founder  and  of 
His  followers.  Judaism,  as  a  supreme  religion,  ex- 
pired when  its  local  sanctuary  was  destroyed.  Moham- 
medanism, after  its  first  burst  of  conquest,  withdrew 
almost  entirely  within  the  limits  of  the  East.  But 
Christianity  has  found  not  only  its  shelter  and 
refuge,  but  its  throne  and  sanctuary,  in  countries  which, 
humanly  speaking,  it  could  hardly  have  been  ex- 
pected to  reach  at  all.  From  these  Western  coun- 
tries, in  spite  of  their  manifold  imperfections,  that 
Eastern   religion   still   sways   the   destinies    of  man- 


io4 


SERMONS.— BOSTON. 


kind.  Under  the  shadow  of  that  tree  which  sprang 
up  from  a  grain  of  mustard-seed  on  the  hills  of 
Galilee,  have  been  gathered  the  nations  of  the 
earth.  The  Christian  religion  rose  on  the  "  wings 
of  the  morning,"  but  it  has  remained  in  the  "utter- 
most parts  of  the  sea,"  because  the  hand  of  God 
was  with  it,  and  the  right  hand  of  God  was  uphold- 
ing it. 

And  now  let  us  briefly  consider  what  were  the 
peculiar  points  of  Christianity  which  have  enabled 
it  to  combine  these  two  worlds  of  thought,  each  so 
different  from  the  other.  In  its  full  development,  in 
its  earliest  and  most  authentic  representation,  we 
see  the  completion  of  those  gifts  and  graces  which 
East  and  West  possess  separately,  and  which  we  each 
are  bound  in  our  measure  to  appropriate. 

(i.)  First  observe,  on  the  one  hand,  in  the  Gospel 
History,  the  awe,  the  reverence,  the  profound  resigna- 
tion to  the  Divine  Will,  the  calm,  untroubled  repose, 
which  are  the  very  qualities  possessed  by  the  Eastern 
religions  at  a  time  when  to  the  West  they  were 
almost  wholly  unknown,  and  which  even  now  are 
more  remarkably  exhibited  in  Eastern  nations  than 
amongst  ourselves.  "Thy  will  be  done,"  that  great 
prayer  which  lies  at   the  root  of  all  religion,  is  a 


'.] 


THE  EAST  AND  THE  WEST. 


thought  which  the  old  Western  nations  hardly  un- 
derstood. It  breathes  the  spirit  of  the  race  of 
Abraham,  of  tie  race  of  Ishmael.  "God  is 
great,"  so  a  Mussulman  Algerine  once  said  to  his 
Christian  captive.  The  captive,  who  came  from  the 
British  Isles,  has  recorded  that  it  was  the  first  word 
of  consolation  that  had  reached  his  heart,  and  caused 
his  sinking  spirit  to  revive.  On  the  other  hand,  look 
at  the  practical  activity  and  beneficence  which  formed 
the  sum  and  substance  of  the  Redeemer's  life;  how 
He  went  about  everywhere  doing  good,  how  He 
made  the  service  of  man  to  be  itself  the  service  of 
God.  This  is  a  vast  advance  from  the  immovable  East. 
It  is  the  Divine  recognition  of  those  energetic  faculties 
which  have  especially  marked  the  character  of  the 
Greek,  the  Roman,  the  German,  and  the  Anglo-Saxon 
races  of  mankind.  Christ  has  taught  us  how  to 
be  reverential,  and  serious,  and  composed.  He  has 
taught  us  no  less  how  to  be  active,  and  stirring,  and 
manly,  and  courageous.  The  activity  of  the  West  has 
been  incorporated  into  Christianity  because  it  is  com- 
prehended in  the  original  character  and  genius  of  our 
Founder,  no  less  than  are  the  awe  and  reverence 
which  belong  to  the  East. 

(2.)  Again,  in  every  Eastern  religion,  even  in  that 


SERMONS.— BOSTON. 


which  Moses  proclaimed  from  Mount  Sinai,  there 
was  a  darkness,  a  mystery,  a  veil,  as  the  Apostle 
expressed  it,  a  veil  on  the  prophet's  face,  a  veil  on 
the  people's  heart,  a  blind  submission  to  absolute 
authority.  There  was  darkness  around  the  throne  of 
God  ;  there  was  darkness  within  the  temple  walls ; 
there  was  in  the  Holy  of  Holies  a  darkness  never 
broken.  To  a  large  extent  this  darkness  and  exclu- 
siveness  must  prevail  always,  till  the  time  comes  when 
we  shall  see  no  longer  through  a  glass  darkly.  There 
always  must  be  mystery  in  the  greatest  truths ;  "  a 
boundless  contiguity  of  shade,"  which  no  philosophy, 
no  inquiry,  no  revelation,  no  decrees  of  councils,  no 
speculation  of  theologians,  can  ever  fathom  or  remove. 
This  marks  Christianity  in  common  with  all  the  reli- 
gions of  the  East.  But  yet,  so  far  as  the  veil  can 
be  withdrawn,  it  has  been  withdrawn  by  Jesus  Christ 
and  by  His  true  disciples.  He  is  the  light  of  the 
world.  In  Him  we  behold  with  open  face  the  glory 
of  the  Father.  He  came  to  bear  witness  to  the 
cruth.  He  went  to  and  fro,  rousing  the  hearts  and 
the  minds  of  men  to  seek  for  truth.  In  Him  the 
cry  of  inquiry  and  of  freedom  which  had  already 
been  awakened  in  the  West  found  a  ready  response. 
Not  without  a  purpose  was  the  Greek  language,  w:ith 


i.]  THE  EAST  AND  THE  WEST.  107 


all  its  manifold  flexibility,  chosen  for  the  vehicle  of 
His  teaching,  rather  than  the  stiff,  immovable  Hebrew. 
Not  without  a  natural  affinity  did  the  Grecian  philo- 
sophy attach  itself  to  the  first  beginnings  of  the  Gospel. 
Not  unfitly  were  Socrates  and  Plato  deemed  by  the 
early  Fathers  to  have  been  Christians  before  the  time. 
The  revival  of  the  studies  of  the  ancient  languages 
and  the  vast  impulse  given  to  the  progress  of  human 
thought  by  the  Reformation  was  in  itself  a  new  mani- 
festation of  Christ,  a  new  declaration  of  His  union 
with  minds  and  classes  of  men  who  had  before  been 
deemed  to  be  without  God  in  the  world.  It  is  a 
constant  reminder,  that  in  using  to  the  utmost 
the  resources  of  science,  in  watching  for  light  from 
whatever  quarter,  in  sifting  and  searching  all  that 
comes  before  us  to  the  very  bottom,  we  are  fulfilling 
one  of  the  chief  calls  of  our  religion,  we  are  accom- 
plishing the  very  will  of  the  Redeemer.  Whatever  is 
good  science  is  good  theology ;  whatever  is  high 
morality  and  pure  civilisation  is  high  and  pure 
religion. 

The  freedom  and  progress  of  the  West  contrast 
as  strongly  with  the  stagnation  of  the  East  as  the 
greenness  of  our  fields  contrasts  with  its  arid  plains, 
the  shadows  of  our  clouds  and  the  freshness  of  our 


j  of! 


SERMONS.— BOSTON. 


breezes  with   its   burning  suns,  the  ceaseless  variety 
and  stir  of  our  teeming  cities  with  its  vast  solitudes. 
And   it  is  a  contrast  which  Christ  and  Christianity 
have  anticipated.    It  is  God's  gift  to  us,  to  be  deve- 
loped as  our  special  contribution  to  the  treasures  of 
our  common  faith.    Let  us  be  of  good  heart,  let  us. 
not  be  unworthy  of  our  high  calling.    Wherever  state- 
ments are  received  without  evidence,  wherever  hollow 
watchwords  are  used  like  sounding  brass  and  tinkling 
cymbal,  there  the  shadow  of  barbarism  is  still  upon 
us;  wherever  language  is  used  as  a  veil  to  conceal 
our  thoughts,  wherever  we  allow  ourselves  to  employ 
sacred  words  without  meaning,  there  the  light  of  the 
Gentiles  has  not  dawned  upon  us.    Truly  it  has  been 
said,  that   the   theological   controversies   which  have 
agitated  the  Churches  to  so  little  practical  purpose 
have  turned  on  words  which  were  not  denned,  and 
therefore   not  understood.     The  moment   the  words 
have   been   defined,  and   their  meaning  appreciated, 
that   moment   the   excitement   has   cooled,   and  the 
passions  evaporated.     So  it  was  with  the  scholastic 
disputes  concerning  the  Trinity;  so  it  has  been  with 
more  recent  disputes   concerning  Predestination  and 
Justification.    The  spirit  of  Western  enlightenment  has 
turned  its  lantern  upon  them;  and  they  have  disap- 


I.]      '      THE  EAST  AND  THE  WEST. 


peared,  or  are  disappearing,  like  phantoms  and  shadows, 
and  the  dayspring  from  on  high  has  arisen  in  our  hearts. 

(3-)  Again.  There  was  in  all  Eastern  religions,  whether 
we  look  Godward  or  manward,  a  stern  separation 
from  the  common  feelings  and  interests  of  mankind. 
We  see  it,  as  regards  man,  in  the  hardness  and 
harshness  of  Eastern  laws ;  we  see  it,  as  regards  God, 
in  the  profound  prostration  of  the  human  soul,  dis- 
played first  in  the  peculiarities  of  Jewish  worship,  and 
to  this  day  in  the  prayers  of  devout  Mussulmans. 
And  this  also  enters  in  its  measure  into  the  life  of 
Christ  and  the  life  of  Christendom.  The  invisible, 
eternal,  unapproachable  Deity,  the  sublime  elevation 
of  the  Founder  of  our  religion  above  all  the  turmoils 
of  earthly  passion  and  of  local  prejudice— that  is  the 
link  of  Christianity  with  the  East. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  was  another  side  of 
the  truth  which  until  Christ  appeared  had  been 
hardly  revealed  at  all  to  the  children  of  the  older 
covenant.  Degrading  and  erroneous  as  in  many 
respects  were  the  old  Gentile  notions  of  the  God- 
head, yet  there  was  one  thought  which  dimly  and 
darkly  ran  through  all  the  old  religions  of  the  nations 
which  the  Bible  called  the  Children  of  Japhet : 
namely,   the   thought   that    the    gods   were   not  far 


110 


SERATONS.— BOSTON. 


removed  from  any  one  of  us.  They  had  from  time 
to  time  come  down  into  the  ranks  of  men ;  they 
had  been  seen  labouring,  suffering,  weeping,  nay,  even 
dying,  for  the  service  and  the  welfare  of  the  human 
race.  And  this  it  is  which  in  the  life  and  character 
of  Christ  is  wonderfully  combined  with  that  deep 
reverence  for  God  of  which  the  Eastern  nations  had 
received  so  large  a  share.  In  Christ  we  see  how 
the  Divine  Word  could  become  flesh,  and  yet  the 
Father  of  all  remain  invisible  and  inconceivable. 
In  Christianity  we  see  not  merely,  as  in  the  Levitical 
system,  man  sacrificing  his  choicest  gifts  to  God, 
but  God,  if  one  may  so  say,  sacrificing  His  own 
dear  Son  for  the  good  of  man.  Not  only  the  lofti- 
ness of  God  as  with  the  Hebrews,  but  the  con- 
descension of  God  as  with  the  Gentiles ;  not  only 
the  abasement  of  man  as  with  the  Jew,  but  the  eleva- 
tion of  man  as  with  the  Greek — were  in  Jesus  Christ 
set  forth  in  indissoluble  union.  And  with  this  closer 
revelation  of  the  Divine  compassion  was  called 
forth  the  justice,  the  gentleness,  the  mercy,  the 
humanity,  which  the  West  has  developed  more 
strongly  than  the  East,  and  which  makes  Christianity 
to  be  emphatically  the  religion  of  love  and,  in  the 
largest  sense,  of  charity. 


t]  THE  EAST  AND  THE  WEST.  Ill 


These  are  some  of  the  points  in  which  Christianity- 
combines  the  religion  of  the  East  and  West  —  in 
which,  having  sprung  from  the  East,  it  has  become 
the  religion  of  our  Western  civilisation.  What  do 
we  learn  from  this  ?  Surely  the  mere  statement  of 
the  fact  is  an  almost  constraining  proof  that  the 
religion  which  thus  unites  both  divisions  of  the  human 
race  was  indeed  of  an  origin  above  them  both ;  that 
the  light  which  thus  shines  on  both  sides  of  the  image 
of  humanity  is  indeed  the  light  that  hghteneth 
every  man.  There  is  no  monotony,  no  sameness, 
no  one-sided ness,  no  narrowness,  here.  The  variety, 
the  complexity,  the  diversity,  the  breadth,  of  the 
character  of  Christ  and  of  His  religion,  is  indeed  an 
expression  of  the  universal  omnipresence  of  God. 
It  is  for  us  to  bear  in  mind  that  this  many-sided- 
ness of  Christianity  is  a  constant  encouragement  to 
hold  fast  those  particles  of  it  which  we  already 
possess,  and  to  reach  forward  to  whatever  elements 
of  it  are  still  beyond  us.  Say  not  that  Christianity 
has  been  exhausted ;  say  not  that  the  hopes  of  Chris- 
tianity have  failed,  nor  yet  that  they  have  been  entirely 
fulfilled.  "  In  our  Father's  house  are  many  mansions." 
In  one  or  other  of  these  each  wandering  soul  may  at 
last  find  its  place,  here  or  hereafter. 


:  12 


SERMONS.— BOSTON. 


I   have   spoken  hitherto   of  the  general  contrast 
between  the  East  and  the  West,  between  the  Children 
of  Shem  and  the  Children  of  Japhet,  between  the 
sacred  regions  of  Asia   and   the   secular   regions  of 
Europe.    I  have  tried  to  point  out  that  here,  as  else- 
where, in  the  Gospel,  that  which  was  last  has  become 
first,  that  which   seemed   secular   has   become  more 
holy  than  tnat  which  seemed  most  sacred;  that  the 
things  of  Csesar  are  not  separate  from  the  things  of 
God,  and  that  by  giving  to  Caesar  the  things  which 
are  Caesar's,  we   in  that  very  act  give  to  God  the 
things  which  are  God's.    Thus  far,  what  I  have  said 
is  applicable  to  the  whole  Western  world,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  ocean  as  well  as  on  this  side.    In  this 
respect  we  are  all  the  common  children  of  the  mighty 
nations  which  formed   the  centre   of  the  civilisation 
and  history  of  mankind.     But  does  not  every  word 
that  has  been  uttered  acquire  a  larger  significance  to 
a  son  of  that  Old  World  when,  standing  here  for  the 
first  time,  he  looks  upon  this  New  World,  of  which, 
in  their  loftiest  flight  of  fancy  or  inspiration,  apostle 
or  prophet  never  dreamed  ?     Is  it  possible  for  him., 
as  he  descends  from  his  flight  on  the  wings  of  the 
morning,  and  lands  on  these  shores,  where  the  race 
and  the  faith  of  his  fathers  have  struck  so  deep  a 


I.] 


THE  EAST  AND  THE  WEST 


"3 


root,  not  to  feel  again  and  yet  again  the  thought 
which,  more  than  a  century  ago,  inspired  the  well- 
known  line  of  the  philosophic  poet :  "  Westward  the 
course  of  empire  takes  its  way"?  Far  be  it  from  any 
of  us  to  pronounce  with  certainty  that  the  latest  off- 
spring of  time  will  be  the  noblest.  Far  be  it  from  a 
stranger  to  forecast  the  duties  or  prospects  which  rise 
before  his  imagination,  as  he  finds  himself  in  this 
West  beyond  the  West,  in  this  West  which  even 
beyond  itself  looks  forward  to  a  yet  farther  West, 
towards  which  the  bays  and  promontories  of  these 
eastern  shores  of  the  new  continent  shall,  perchance, 
as  the  years  roll  on,  stand  in  the  same  relation  as 
the  East,  the  ancient  consecrated  East,  the  ancestral 
hills  and  valleys  of  English  and  of  European  Christen- 
dom, stand  to  them.  We  cannot,  we  dare  not,  forecast 
the  future ;  but  we  cannot,  we  dare  not,  repress  the 
thought  that  a  future,  vast  and  wonderful  for  good 
or  for  evil,  must  be  in  store  for  those  descendants 
of  our  common  race  to  whom  this  mighty  inheritance 
has  been  given.  For  the  New  World  as  for  the  Old 
World  there  is  a  glorious  work  to  do,  a  work  which 
requires  all  the  reverence,  all  the  seriousness,  all  the 
repose,  of  the  East;  all  the  activity,  all  the  freedom, 
all  the  progress,  of  the  West ;  all  the  long  past  of 


1 14  SERMONS.— BOSTON.  [1. 

Europe,  all  the  long  future  of  America — a  work  which 
neither  can  do  for  the  other,  but  a  work  which  both 
can  do  together. 

"Hast  thou  but  one  blessing,  my  Father?  bless 
me,  even  me  also,  O  my  Father ! "  This  is  the 
prayer  which  East  and  West,  England  and  America, 
may  well  send  up  from  shore  to  shore.  Give  to  each 
the  grace  to  learn  from  each.  Give  to  each  the 
strength  to  fulfil  that  pure  and  lofty  mission  which 
belongs  to  each.  Give  to  each  the  spirit  of  wisdom 
and  understanding,  of  "  holy  hope  and  high  humility," 
to  which  the  whole  body  of  mankind,  fitly  joined 
together  and  compacted  by  that  which  every  joint 
supplieth,  according  to  the  effectual  working  of  every 
part,  shall  make  increase  of  the  body  unto  the  edifying 
of  itself  in  love.  We  have  taken  the  wings  of  the 
morning,  we  have  dwelt  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the 
Western  sea.  O,  may  Thy  hand  even  there  lead  us 
onward  !  O,  may  Thy  right  hand  even  there  hold 
us  up  I 


n. 

THE  HOLY  ANGELS. 

PREACHED   IN   ST.   JAMES'S   CHURCH,  PHILADELPHIA, 
SEPTEMBER  20,  1878. 

"Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven." — Matthew  vi.  ia. 

It  is  on  the  last  part  of  these  words— "as  it  is  in 
heaven,"  that  I  propose  to  dwell.  We  are  invited 
to  consider  them  by  the  festival  of  this  day,  Michael- 
mas. But  there  is  no  time  or  place  in  which  we  may 
not  turn  our  thoughts  from  earth  to  heaven,  from  the 
seen  to  the  unseen,  from  the  confused,  imperfect  ways 
of  the  performance  of  God's  will  in  this  troublesome 
world  to  its  perfect  and  Divine  fulfilment  in  a  better 
and  higher  state.  It  is  on  this  that  our  thoughts 
shall  now  be  fixed. 

I  do  not  propose  to  dwell  at  length  on  what  is 
told  us  concerning  the  Holy  Angels.  It  is  not  easy 
nor  is  it  necessary,  to  separate  what  we  have  learned 

1  2 


n6  SERMONS.— PHILADELPHIA.  [n. 

concerning  them  from  the  Bible,  and  what  we  have 
learned  from  the  great  representations  of  them  in 
painting  and  in  poetry.  But  the  general  idea  which 
the  belief  in  angels  expresses  is  deeply  rooted  in  the 
Christian  heart  and  is  full  of  instruction.  If  our 
thoughts  concerning  them  are  drawn  more  from  Milton 
than  from  the  Bible,  yet  Milton  has,  in  his  splendid 
imagery,  laid  hold  of  a  noble  doctrine,  at  once  Biblical 
and  philosophical.  The  idea  of  the  heaveniy  host  of 
angels  includes  the  operations  of  God  in  the  vast 
movements  of  the  universe,  and  His  ministrations 
through  the  spirits  of  men,  whether  now  or  hereafter. 
It  includes  that  ideal  world  to  which  Plato  fondly 
looked  as  the  sphere  in  which  reside  the  great  ideas, 
the  perfect  images,  of  which  all  earthly  virtue  and 
beauty  are  but  the  imperfect  shadows.  It  includes 
the  thought  of  that  peculiarly  bright  and  lovely  type 
of  Christian  character  to  which,  for  want  of  any  other 
word,  we  have  in  modern  times  given  the  name  of 
"angel"  or  "angelic" — superhuman,  yet  not  Divine; 
not  heroic,  not  apostolic,  not  saintly,  yet  exactly  what 
we  call  "  seraphic "  or  "  angelic,"  elevating,  attracting, 
with  the  force  of  inherent  nobleness  and  beauty.  "An 
angel's  nature,"  says  Luther,  "  is  a  fine,  tender,  kind 
heart,  as  if  we  could  find  a  man  or  woman,  who  had 


II.] 


THE  HOLY  ANGELS. 


17 


a  heart  sweet  all  through,  and  a  gentle  will  without 
subtlety,  yet  of  sound  reason.  He  who  has  seen  such 
has  seen  colours  wherewith  he  may  picture  to  himself 
what  an  angel  is."  The  idea  belongs  to  that  high 
region  of  thought  where  religion  and  poetry  combine. 
Religious  belief  furnished  the  materials,  but  poetry 
wrought  and  transformed  them  into  shapes  which  the 
latest  religious  culture  of  mankind  can  never  cease  to 
recognise.  Let  us,  therefore,  trace,  so  far  as  we  can, 
the  outlines  of  that  perfect  fulfilment  of  the  Divine 
will  of  which  here  we  see  only  the  scanty  and  partial 
promise. 

(1.)  First,  the  will  of  God  is  perfectly  done  in  heaven, 
because  it  is,  as  we  believe,  done  with  the  unbroken, 
uninterrupted  sense  of  the  presence  of  God.  It  is 
well  to  know  how  to  be  in  sympathy  with  the  will  of 
God ;  to  feel  truly  the  littleness  of  all  that  is  little,  and 
to  feel  no  less  truly  the  greatness  of  all  that  is  great ; 
to  have  a  just  measure  of  what  is  partial,  secondary, 
indifferent,  and  of  what  is  eternal,  permanent,  and 
essential ;  to  look  beyond  the  narrow  present  to  the 
far-reaching  past  and  future.  This,  which  we  may 
believe  is  the  instinct  of  the  blessed  intelligences 
which  stand  around  the  throne  of  God,  ought  to  be 
the  aspiration,  difficult  and  arduous,  yet  not  impossible, 


1 1 8  SERMONS.— PHILADELPHIA. 


[II. 


of  those  who  are  struggling  here  on  earth.  "The 
Lord  sitteth  above  the  cherubim,  be  the  earth  never 
so  unquiet."  We  should  strive  to  look  upon  things  on 
earth  as  we  imagine  that  He  looks  upon  them  who 
sees  their  beginning,  middle,  and  end.  This  is  the 
first  ground  of  the  belief  of  which  we  are  speaking. 

(2.)  Again,  the  thought  of  the  host  of  heaven  suggests 
the  idea  of  order,  law,  subordination.  When  the  most 
majestic  divine  of  the  English  Church,  Richard  Hooker, 
was  on  his  deathbed,  he  was  found  deep  in  contem- 
plation, and  on  being  asked  the  subject  of  his  reflec- 
tions, he  replied  "  that  he  was  meditating  upon  the 
number  and  nature  of  angels,  and  their  blessed 
obedience  and  order,  without  which  peace  could  not 
be  in  heaven  ;  and  oh  !  that  it  might  be  so  on  earth  ! " 
It  was  a  meditation  full  of  the  same  grand  thought 
which  inspired  his  great  work  on  "Ecclesiastical 
Polity" — the  thought  of  the  majesty  of  law,  "whose 
seat,"  as  he  says,  "  is  the  bosom  of  God,  and  whose 
voice  is  the  harmony  of  the  universe."  The  very 
words  by  which  the  angelic  intelligences  are  described — 
"  thrones,  principalities,  and  powers  " — the  connection 
into  which  they  are  brought  with  the  universal  laws 
of  nature — "  He  maketh  the  winds  His  angels,  and 
the  flames  of  fire  His  ministers" — bring  before  us  the 


II.]  THE  HOLY  ANGELS.  119 

truth  that  by  law,  by  order,  by  due  subordination  of 
means  to  ends,  as  in  the  material,  so  in  the  moral 
world,  the  will  of  God  is  best  carried  out.  This' 
truth  gives  a  new  meaning  to  those  researches  through 
which  the  students  of  nature  are  enabled,  by  working 
with  those  laws,  to  work  out  the  will  of  their  Maker. 
But  it  also  gives  a  fresh  force  and  interest  to  tho;c 
other  manifestations  of  law  in  the  government  »of 
States  or  Churches,  by  which  there  also  the  will  of 
God  must  be  done  on  earth  as  by  those  higher  laws 
in  heaven ;  by  the  laws  of  duty  in  the  human  con- 
science ;  by  the  laws  of  nations ;  by  the  laws  and 
constitutions  which  Divine  Providence  has,  through 
the  genius  of  man  and  the  progress  of  arts,  raised  up 
in  our  different  commonwealths.    By  such  laws, 

the  stars  are  kept  from  wrong, 
And  the  most  ancient  heavens  through  it  are  fresh  and  strong. 

By  such  laws  all  human  societies  are  kept  from  unruly 
disorder,  popular  violence,  despotic  tyranny.  By  the 
supremacy  of  such  laws,  has  the  Church  and  State 
of  England  hitherto  been  guarded  and  guided  to 
temperate  freedom,  and  wholesome  doctrine,  and 
solid  unity.  Out  of  such  laws  have  sprung  the  great 
communities  which  trace  their  descent  from  England 


120  SERMONS.— PHILADELPHIA. 


[II. 


on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  And,  oh !  by  the 
supremacy  of  law  may  we  all  continue  to  be  ruled; 
by  law  may  the  passions  of  individuals  be  restrained, 
and  the  liberty  of  thought  and  of  speech  secured, 
and  the  peace  and  order  of  the  whole  community 
maintained  !  By  such  order  and  by  such  law  may  the 
whole  of  modern  society,  on  this  side  of  the  ocean 
or  the  other,  be  maintained  in  the  stress  and  strain 
now  laid  on  every  part  of  its  complex  organisation. 
Let  justice,  which  is  the  soul  of  law,  prevail,  though 
heaven  itself  should  fall ;  or,  rather — as  heaven  cannot 
fall,  if  only  justice  be  done — let  justice,  which  is  God  s 
will  in  heaven,  on  earth  have  its  perfect  work. 

(3.)  Again  the  Scripture  teaches — and  our  own  heart 
and  reason  respond  to  the  thought — that,  combined  with 
the  universal  sense  of  the  Divine  presence  and  of  the 
Divine  law,  there  is  in  the  celestial  world  a  wide 
diversity  of  gifts  and  operations.  "  Few  and  far 
between,"  indeed,  are  the  glimpses  which  the  Bible 
gives  us  of  the  heavenly  hierarchy ;  yet  they  reveal 
to  us  such  a  variety  of  form  and  beauty  as  naturally 
befits  the  pattern  and  exemplar  of  this  universe,  so 
fearfully  and  wonderfully  made,  of  this  marvellous 
complexity  of  human  souls  and  spirits  created  in  one 
Divine  image,  though  in  a  thousand  types.   The  seraph's 


II.] 


THE  HOLY  ANGELS. 


121 


fire,  we  are  taught  to  think,  is  different  from  the  cherub's 
strength.  We  see  the  four  living  creatures  before  the 
throne,  contrasted  each  with  each,  as  ox  with  eagle, 
and  eagle  with  lion,  and  lion  with  man ;  one  star 
differing  from  another  in  glory  ;  there  a  rainbow,  like 
unto  an  emerald ;  there  the  guileless  virgin  souls 
following  the  gentle  Lamb  whithersoever  He  goeth ; 
there  the  multitude,  in  white  robes,  with  palms  in 
their  hands,  that  have  come  out  of  great  tribulation  ■ 
there  the  armed  soldiers  of  heaven,  galloping  on 
white  horses  to  victory. 

Truly,  "in  our  Father's  house  are  many  mansions;" 
truly,  the  gates  of  that  heavenly  city  "are  open  con- 
tinually, day  and  night."  In  those  many  mansions, 
through  those  open  gates,  by  those  diverse  gifts,  our 
Fathers  will  is  done  in  heaven. 

It  has  been  one  happy  characteristic  of  the  Church 
of  England,  that  it  has  retained  these  several  aspects 
of  the  Christian  character  within  its  pale.  There  is 
in  Westminster  Abbey  a  window  dear  to  American 
hearts,  because  erected  by  an  honoured  citizen  of 
Philadelphia,  in  which  these  two  elements  are  pre- 
sented side  by  side.  On  the  one  hand  is  the  sacred 
poet  most  cherished  by  the  ecclesiastical,  royalist, 
priest-like  phase  of  the  Church,  George  Herbert;  on 


122  SERMONS.- PHILADELPHIA. 


[It 


the  other  hand,  the  sacred  poet  most  cherished  by 
the  Puritan,  austere,  lay  phase  of  the  Church,  William 
Cowper.     That  diversity  is  an  example  of  the  way 
in  which  God's  will  is  wrought   on  earth   as  it  is 
in  heaven.     I  have  said  that  we  do  not  speculate 
on  the  names  or  natures  of  angels,  yet  as  symbols 
and  outlines  of  the  Divine   operations  they  may  be 
full   of   good   suggestions.     In   the    rabbinical  and 
mediaeval   theology,   this    diversity   used    to    be  re- 
presented   by    the    manifold    titles    of   the  various 
"  principalities  and  powers."    Most  of  these  have  now 
dropped  out  of  use;  but  there  are  some  few  which, 
either  from  their    mention  in    the   Biblical   or  the 
apocryphal  books,  or  from  the  transfiguring  hand  of 
artistic  or  poetic  genius,  have  survived.    Michael,  the 
leader  of  the  host  of  heaven,  the  champion  of  good 
against  evil,  the  immortal  youth  of  Guido's  magnificent 
picture,  trampling  on  the  prostrate  dragon  ;  Gabriel,  the 
pacific  harbinger  of  glad  tidings,  the  inspirer  of  hea- 
venly thoughts,  by  whose  gracious  touch  the  greatly 
beloved  Daniel  was  sustained,  and  the  retiring  Mary 
encouraged,  to  whom  the  Arabian  Prophet  in  his  cave 
looked  for  inspiration,  to  whom  Milton  assigned  the 
delightful  post  of  guarding  the  gates  of  the  earthly 
paradise;  Raphael,  the  "sociable  spirit,"  the  travelling 


II.] 


THE  HOLY  ANGELS. 


companion  of  the  good  Tobias,  the  ideal  of  those 
angels  whom,  in  mortal  form,  we  sometimes  entertain 
unawares,  whose  words,  when  ended, 

So  charming  left  his  voice,  that  we  the  while 
Think  him  still  speaking,  still  stand  fixed  to  hear ; 

Uriel,  the  "  regent  of  the  sun,"  "  the  light  of  God," 
seen  for  a  moment  in  the  books  of  Enoch  and  Esdras, 
but  in  Milton's  poem  the  glowing  representative  of 
the  angel  of  all  knowledge ;  Ithuriel,  the  searcher, 
the  discoverer  of  truth,  with  his  spear  whose  touch  of 
celestial  temper  no  falsehood  can  endure ;  Abdiel, 
the  everlasting  example,  as  long  as  the  English  language 
lives,  of  courageous  isolation,  "  the  dreadless  angel " — 

Among  the  faithless,  faithful  only  he  ; 
Among  innumerable  false,  unmoved, 
Unshaken,  unseduced,  unterrilied. 

Such  are  the  Divine  ideals  that  the  angelic  powers 
represent.  They  bring  before  us  the  summits  of  virtue, 
and  also  its  divergences.  As  in  heaven,  so  on  earth 
let  us  strive,  so  far  as  is  possible,  that  no  light,  of 
however  a  different  a  lustre  from  our  own,  be  extin- 
guished ;  that  no  strength  of  purpose  or  conscience, 
however  diverse  from  our  own,  be  shut  out ;  that  no 


SERMONS.— PHILADELPHIA.  [iL 


aspiration  after  truth  or  duty,  however  wayward,  be 
stifled ;  that  no  spark,  even  though  it  be  that  of  the 
smoking  flax,  be  quenched ;  that  no  soaring  pinion 
be  clipped  in  its  upward  flight;  that,  of  all  the  many 
coloured  shades,  of  all  the  numberless  diversities, 
whether  of  English  or  universal  Christendom,  none 
be  regarded  as  useless  or  worthless ;  that  every  good 
and  perfect  gift,  whether  in  man  or  nature,  whether  in 
the  Old  World,  with  all  its  aged  and  venerable  forms, 
or  in  the  New  World,  with  all  its  youth  and  vigour,  be 
alike  hailed  as  coming  down  from  the  "  Father  of  Lights, 
with  whom  is  no  variableness,  neither  shadow  of  turn- 
ing." Not  in  the  exclusiveness  of  the  courts  of  heaven, 
but  in  their  width  and  openness,  shall  we  rejoice  here- 
after :  not  by  the  exclusiveness  of  any  Church  or 
school  on  earth,  not  by  the  equality  of  all  human 
characters,  but  by  their  inequalities  ;  not  by  contrac- 
tion within  our  own  circle,  but  by  our  patient  endurance 
of  things  beyond  our  narrow  vision,  ought  we  to  rejoice 
now.  "  Every  blessed  spirit  which  ever  existed" — so 
wrote  one  of  the  best  of  the  Reformers  to  a  prince 
bowed  down  by  great  bereavement,  and  asking  anxiously 
concerning  that  unknown  state  beyond  the  grave — 
"Every  blessed  spirit  which  ever  existed,  every  holy 
character  which  shall  exist,  every  faithful  soul  which  is 


11.1  THE  HOLY  ANGELS.  125 

living  now,  all  these,  from  the  beginning  of  the  world 
even  unto  the  consummation  thereof,  thou  shalt  hereafter 
see  in  the  presence  of  Almighty  God." 

In  that  very  diversity  lies  the  strength,  the  beauty, 
and  the  interest  of  the  celestial  hierarchy.  Nor  was  it 
without  a  deep  meaning  that  the  Book  of  Daniel  speaks 
of  "  the  angel " — the  genius,  as  it  were — of  each  par- 
ticular empire  and  kingdom  in  the  ancient  heathen 
world.  Those  angel  forms,  those  idealised  representa- 
tives, the  genius  of  each  State,  and  Nation,  and  Church, 
still  meet  us  in  the  commonwealths  of  modern  times. 
Of  these  the  whole  family  of  Christendom  and  the 
whole  family  of  mankind  is  composed.  At  the  times 
when  their  characteristic  diversities  are  most  strongly 
brought  out,  we  seem  to  see  God's  purpose  in  having 
allowed  such  diverse  formations  among  His  creatures. 
The  angel  of  the  old  hemisphere,  and  the  angel  of  the 
new  hemisphere,  are  both  dear  in  the  sight  of  Him 
who  made  them  both,  and  who  designed  for  each  a 
work  which  none  but  they,  and  they  both  separately 
and  conjointly,  can  accomplish. 

(4.)  There  is  yet  another  thought  suggested,  especially 
by  that  name  which  gives  its  chief  meaning  to  the 
festival  of  Michaelmas.  "  There  was  war  in  heaven  ; 
Michael  and  his  angels  fought  against  the  dragon." 


126  SERM  OXS— PHILADELPHIA . 


[n. 


This  is  the  ideal  side  of  the  greatest  of  earthly  evils. 
There  is  war  even  in  heaven,  to  carry  out  the  will  of 
God  in  casting  out  evil  from  the  world ;  and  so  far  as 
the  same  qualities  are  called  forth  by  war  on  earth, 
it  is  true  that  even  in  the  midst  of  the  carnage  of 
battle,  even  in  the  midst  of  the  misery  of  precious 
lives  lost,  of  brilliant  hopes  overturned,  there  is  a  like- 
ness to  the  conflicts  of  the  celestial  hosts.  Courage, 
self-control,  discipline — these  are  the  gifts  by  which 
victories  are  won  on  earth.  Courage,  self-control, 
discipline — these,  if  we  may  so  say,  are  the  gifts  by 
which  victories  are  won  in  heaven. 

Some  of  us  may  have  read  the  complaint  uttered 
in  one  of  the  most  striking  works  of  American  genius 
against  the  famous  Italian  picture  to  which  I  have 
alluded,  in  which  the  Archangel  bestrides  his  fallen 
enemy  in  unstained  armour,  with  fair,  unfurrowed 
brow,  with  azure  vest,  with  wings  undisturbed.  "Not 
so,"  says  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  "should  virtue  look 
in  its  death-struggle  with  evil ;  the  archangel's  feathers 
should  have  been  torn  and  ruffled,  his  armour  soiled, 
his  robes  rent,  his  sword  broken  to  the  hilt."  Even 
in  the  contests  of  heaven  there  must  be  struggles, 
and  of  those  struggles  earthly  warfare  gives  us  a  like- 
ness and  type.    All  honour  to  the  efforts  after  peace 


n.j 


THE  HOLY  ANGELS. 


127 


which  inspired  the  aims  of  that  Society  of  Friends  to 
which  this  city  owes  its  existence,  and  yet  it  is  not 
without  significance  that  the  only  authentic  portrait  of 
William  Penn  is  that  which  represents  him  in  his 
early  youth  as  a  gallant  soldier  in  complete  armour, 
and  with  the  motto,  "Peace  is  sought  by  War."  Peace, 
whether  in  religion  or  in  politics,  is  the  end,  but  it 
is  often  true  that  war  and  conflict  must  be  the  means. 
Michael  the  Archangel,  the  soldier  of  the  heavenly  hosts, 
is  a  true  exemplar  of  Christian  goodness,  no  less  than 
the  gentle  Raphael  or  the  gracious  Gabriel.  May  God's 
will  everywhere,  and  by  all  of  us,  be  carried  out  with 
the  same  unswerving,  persevering  determination  to 
resist  and  conquer  evil  by  man's  will  on  earth  as  by 
God's  will  in  heaven. 

(5.)  Again,  the  heaven,  where  the  Divine  will  pre- 
vails, is  described  in  the  Bible  as  a  world  of  spirits. 
It  is  the  spirit,  the  spiritual,  which  unites  and  vivifies 
the  whole.  In  Ezekiel's  complicated  vision  of  the 
angelic  operations  of  Divine  Providence,  it  is  the 
spirit  which  is  in  the  midst  of  the  wheels.  "  Whither- 
soever the  spirit  was  to  go  they  went,  and  they  went 
every  one  straight  forward,  and  they  turned  not  when 
they  went."  In  the  vision  of  St.  John,  no  less,  all  the 
worship  is  of  the  spirit,  and  of  the  spirit  alone.    ''  i 


123 


SERMONS.— PHILA  DELPHI  A. 


saw  no  temple  therein,  and  the  city  had  no  need  of 
the  sun  or  of  the  moon  to  shine  in  it,  and  there 
shall  be  no  more  curse,  for  the  tabernacle  of  God 
is  amongst  them."  Doubtless,  in  our  imperfect  state, 
the  will  of  God  cannot,  in  this  respect,  be  done  entirely 
on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven.  Yet  still  the  thought  of 
that  state  to  which  we  all  look  forward  helps  us 
more  clearly  to  understand  what  should  be  the  aim 
and  object  of  all  earthly  combinations  and  forms, 
whether  of  language,  of  government,  or  of  worship. 
It  is  by  the  spirit,  not  the  letter ;  by  the  essential 
substance,  and  not  the  accidental  covering;  by 
the  better  understanding  of  the  meaning  that  lies 
beneath  the  words ;  by  the  better  appreciation  of  unity 
amidst  outward  differences ;  by  the  comparison  not 
only  of  earthly  things  with  earthly,  but  of  spiritual 
things  with  spiritual,  without  respect  of  persons  or 
nations,  that  the  unity  of  spirit,  which  is  the  unity 
of  the  blessed  angels  in  heaven,  can  ever  be  pro- 
duced amongst  Churches  or  nations.  Much  of  the 
course  of  this  world  may  be  carried  on  by  colossal 
armies,  and  by  blood  and  fire  and  sword,  by  gigantic 
commerce,  by  daring  assertion  of  authority,  by  cere- 
monial observances,  by  dogmatic  exclusiveness.  But 
there  is  a  higher  course,  which  is  carried  on  by  the 


II.] 


THE  HOLY  ANGELS. 


29 


still,  small  voice  of  conscience ;  by  the  union  of  in- 
telligent minds ;  by  spirit,  not  by  matter ;  by  reason, 
not  by  force ;  by  mind  and  heart,  and  not  by  ex- 
ternal polity.  Each  one  is,  in  this  sense,  a  king  to 
himself.  The  hosts  which  really  govern  the  world 
are  the  thoughts  and  consciences  of  men.  More 
dear  in  the  sight  of  God  and  His  angels  than  any 
other  conquest  is  the  conquest  of  self,  which  each  man, 
with  the  help  of  heaven,  can  secure  for  himself.  There 
is  one  great  characteristic  of  the  venerable  religious 
society  of  which  this  city  is  the  centre — namely,  that 
alone  of  separate  Christian  communions  it  placed  before 
it,  as  the  object  and  reason  of  its  existence,  not  any 
outward  ceremony,  not  any  technical  doctrine,  but  the 
moral  improvement  of  mankind — the  insignificance  of 
all  forms  and  of  all  authority,  compared  with  the  in- 
ward light  of  conscience.  This  protest  of  the  Friends, 
this  lofty  aspiration,  may  have  been  accompanied  by 
many  relapses,  many  extravagances,  many  glaring  in- 
consistencies ;  but  in  itself,  and  looking  not  at  its 
means,  but  at  its  ends,  it  is  an  example  to  all 
Christendom  ;  it  is  not  only  Christian,  but  angelic. 

(6.)  There  is  yet  one  more  aspect  of  this  doctrine, 
the  constant  activity  of  the  ministering  spirits  of  God, 
in  their  care  for  His  glory  and  for  the  welfare  of  men. 

K 


SERMONS.— PHILADELPHIA.  [li. 


There  are,  indeed,  those  who  serve,  although  they  only 
"stand  and  wait;"  those  who  in  the  temple  of  heaven, 
as  in  the  temple  on  earth,  do  God's  will  by  silent  praise 
and  contemplation.  But  this  is  not  the  usual  descrip- 
tion of  the  ministering  spirits.  They  rest  not,  day  nor 
night ;  their  rest  is  in  work,  and  their  work  itself  is 
rest.  They  rejoice,  so  we  are  told,  in  the  recovery  of 
every  fragment  of  good.  And  this  ministration  for  our 
welfare  extends  even  to  those  operations  of  Providence 
which  seem  at  times  most  adverse.  As  in  nature,  the 
fierce  rain,  the  wild  wind,  the  raging  fire,  are  often 
indispensable  instruments  for  the  purification  of  rivers, 
the  invigoration  of  health,  the  reformation  of  cities,  so 
also  it  is  in  individual  experience.  In  our  own  lives 
how  often  it  is  that  we  come  across  what  have  been 
finely  called  "  veiled  angels." 

We  know  how  radiant  and  how  kind 
The  r  faces  are  those  veils  behind  ; 
We  trust  those  veils  one  happy  day 
In  heaven  and  earth  shall  pass  away. 

There  is  one  such  veiled  angel  to  whom,  in  Oriental 
countries,  a  special  name  has  been  given,  well  known 
through  the  words  of  a  pathetic  poem,  taken  as  the 
motto  of  the  most  tragical  chapter  of  English  fiction. 
It  is  "Azrael,  the  angel  of  death."    Yes,  even  Death, 


II.] 


THE  HOLY  ANGELS. 


the  darkest  and  sternest  of  the  messengers  of  God, 
even  he  is,  or  may  be,  an  angel  of  mercy.  In  a 
famous  speech  of  one  of  our  greatest  orators  during 
the  European  war  of  twenty-five  years  ago,  there  occur 
words  which  have  never  been  forgotten  by  those  who 
heard  them,  and  which  struck  a  sacred  awe  on  the 
national  assembly  to  which  he  spoke  :  "  The  angel  of 
death  is  passing  over  the  land.  I  seem  even  now  to 
hear  the  flapping  of  his  wings."  Not  only  in  war,  but 
in  every  day  of  every  year,  in  some  household  or  other 
at  this  season,  especially  over  the  Southern  region  of 
this  country,  afflicted  by  wasting  pestilence,  that  tread 
may  be  felt,  the  rustling  of  those  wings  may  be  heard. 
But  the  angel  of  death  is  also  the  angel  of  life,  for 
if  Death  divides  he  may  also  reunite.  The  angel 
whose  visits  are  of  judgment  and  destruction  invites 
and  provokes  us  to  works  of  charity  and  kindness. 
The  angel  who  sits  within  the  shadow  of  the  sepulchre 
is  also  the  angel  of  the  resurrection  of  our  immortal 
souls. 

These  then  are  the  ways  in  which  God's  will  is  done 
in  heaven  : 

First,  the  consciousness  of  the  Divine  presence; 
Secondly,  the  majesty  of  law  ; 
Thirdly,  the  diversity  of  Divine  gifts  ; 

K  2 


132  SERMONS.— PHILADELPHIA.  [::. 
Fourthly,  the  conflict  with  evil ; 

Fifthly,  the  spiritual  character  of  the  service  of 
heaven ; 

Sixthly,  the  Divine  beneficence. 

May  God  grant  that  now  and  then — as  we  pray  our 
daily  prayers  to  God,  for  His  will  to  be  done  on  earth 
as  it  is  in  heaven — some  one  of  these  thoughts,  so 
imperfectly  expressed,  may  take  possession  of  our 
souls. 


III. 

THE  PERPLEXITIES  OF  LIFE. 

PREACHED  IN  CALVARY  CHURCH,  NEW  YORK,  OCTOBER  6,  1878. 

"  Suffer  me  a  little,  and  I  will  shew  thee  that  I  have  yet  to  speak 
on  God's  behalf." — -Job  xxxvi.  2. 

The  Book  of  Job  is  full  of  interest  from  beginning  to 
end ;  its  dramatic  character,  its  pathos,  pervade  its 
structure  throughout.  It  is  divided  into  two  sections. 
The  first  part  describes,  in  the  most  vivid  poetry,  the 
misery  and  the  hopes  of  the  Patriarch.  This  occupies 
thirty-one  chapters.  But  the  pith  and  conclusion  of 
the  book  is  to  be  found  in  the  second  part,  from  the 
thirty-second  chapter  to  the  end.  The  long  contro- 
versy of  Job  with  his  three  friends  is  finished,  when 
Job,  although  feeling  that  he  was  right,  and  they  were 
wrong,  breaks  out  into  the  cry  :  "  Oh  that  one  would 
hear  me !  Behold,  my  desire  is  that  the  Almighty 
would  answer  me."    That  cry  was  heard.    The  words 


134 


SERMONS.— NEW  YORK. 


[hi. 


of  Job  were  ended ;  the  three  friends  were  silent ;  but 
there  was  yet  another  spectator  drawn  to  the  scene  of 
sorrow — the  youth  Elihu.  He  had  heard  both  sides; 
he  had  waited  until  they  had  all  spoken,  with  that 
reverential  deference  which,  in  Oriental  countries,  marks 
the  conduct  of  youth  to  age  ;  but  now  he  could  restrain 
himself  no  longer.  "  He  was  full  of  matter,  the  spirit 
within  him  constrained  him  ;  he  spoke  that  he  might 
be  refreshed."  He  opened  his  lips,  and  answered : 
"  I  am  young,  and  ye  are  very  old ;  wherefore  I  was 
afraid,  and  durst  not  shew  you  mine  opinion.  I  said, 
days  should  speak,  and  multitude  of  years  should  teach 
wisdom.  But  there  is  a  spirit  in  man,  and  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  Almighty  giveth  them  understanding.  Great 
men  are  not  always  wise,  neither  do  the  aged  understand 
judgment.  Therefore  I  said  :  Hearken  to  me ;  I  also 
will  shew  mine  opinion."  He  then,  with  trembling  and 
hesitating  accents,  in  confused  and  complicated  argu- 
ments, entreats  them  to  listen  to  him,  for  he  speaks  in 
and  for  a  higher  power  than  his  own.  "  Surfer  me  a 
little,  and  I  will  shew  thee  that  I  have  yet  to  speak  on 
God's  behalf." 

Some  critics  have  thought  that  the  character  of 
Elihu  was  introduced  into  the  book  at  a  later  date,  in 
order  to  clear  up  the  perplexed  horizon ;  but,  at  any 


HI.]         THE  PERPLEXITIES  OF  LIFE.  135 


rate,  his  part  forms  an  integral  element  in  the  sacred 
story  as  now  handed  down  to  us.  It  is  like  that  of  the 
wise  chorus  in  the  Grecian  tragedy;  like  that  of  an 
impartial  judge  balancing  the  arguments  of  a  contested 
cause.  Gently  and  calmly,  without  vehemence,  and 
without  anger,  he  turns  the  attention  of  the  Patriarch 
from  himself  and  his  sufferings  to  the  greatness,  the 
power,  the  wisdom  of  God.  The  complaints  of  Job 
against  his  friends  might  be  right,  but  "against  God — 
behold  in  this  they  were  not  just."  "  I  will  answer  thee, 
that  God  is  greater  than  man.  Why  dost  thou  strive 
against  Him  ?  for  He  giveth  not  account  of  any  of  His 
matters."  And  thus  he  rises  to  a  strain  yet  higher ; 
he  leaves  the  comparison  of  good  and  evil  in  this  life, 
and  turns  to  the  purer  and  clearer  works  of  God  in 
creation.  Then  there  comes  the  final  confirmation  of 
his  view  of  the  world  :  "  While  Elihu  yet  spake,  his 
heart  trembled  and  was  moved  out  of  its  place ;" 
there  was  a  roar  of  thunder  and  a  whirlwind,  and 
from  the  whirlwind  the  Lord  answered  Job  and  said  : 
"  Who  is  this  that  darkeneth  counsel  by  words  without 
knowledge  ?" 

The  wonders  of  nature  were  unfolded  piece  by 
piece  before  his  face;  "the  laying  of  the  foundations 
of  the  earth,  when  the  morning  stars  sang  together;" 


i36 


SERMONS.— NEW  YORK. 


[III. 


the  waves  of  the  sea,  the  sun,  the  planets,  the  snow, 
the  clouds,  the  mighty  forms  of  the  animal  creation, 
the  marvellous  instincts  of  beast  and  bird,  the  war- 
horse  impatient  for  the  battle,  "  Behemoth "  (that  is, 
the  hippopotamus)  revelling  in  his  unwieldy  strength, 
"  Leviathan  "  (that  is,  the  scaly  crocodile  of  the  Egyptian 
Nile).  What  the  hard  dogmatism  of  the  friends  had 
been  unable  to  effect,  is  now  at  last  impressed  by  the 
terrible  yet  glorious  vision  of  the  Divine  works  in 
creation.  Before  that  solemn  display  of  the  majesty 
of  God  the  proud  spirit  of  the  ancient  chieftain  was 
bowed  down,  and  he  said :  "  I  know  that  Thou  canst 
do  everything,  and  that  no  thought  can  be  withholden 
from  Thee."  "  I  have  heard  of  Thee  by  the  hearing 
of  the  ear,  but  now  mine  eye  seeth  Thee;  wherefore 
I  abhor  myself,  and  repent  in  dust  and  ashes." 

This  is  a  brief  summary  of  the  close  of  this  in- 
structive book.  Let  us  draw  from  it  its  chief  practical 
lessons.  They  are  four  in  number;  four  lessons,  as 
we  may  call  them,  on  the  perplexities  of  life. 

(i.)  First,  the  wisdom  put  into  the  mouth  of  Elihu, 
when  the  three  friends  had  failed,  recalls  to  us  the 
truth  taught  elsewhere  in  Scripture,  that  there  are 
times  when  traditional  authority  must  give  way,  when 
he  who  is  young  may  instruct  those  who  are  aged, 


HI.]         THE  PERPLEXITIES  OF  LIFE. 


'37 


when  "out  of  the  mouths  of  babes  and  sucklings 
God  has  ordained"  that  very  "strength"  which  the 
world  most  needs.  That  deference  to  age  and  expe- 
rience on  which  the  three  friends  insist,  is  indeed  the 
general  rule  both  in  sacred  and  common  life.  Un- 
less it  were  so,  society  would  always  be  dissolving 
and  reconstructing  itself  afresh;  teaching  and  acting 
would  lose  that  solidity  and  stability  which  is  the 
only  guarantee  of  progress  as  well  as  of  permanence. 
Hesitation  and  modesty  are  the  true  models  of  youth- 
ful reverence  at  all  times.  But  the  doctrine  which  is 
shadowed  forth  in  the  appearance  of  Elihu  is  this, 
that  each  generation  must  learn  not  only  from  that 
which  has  gone  before,  but  from  that  which  is  coming 
after  it.  The  rising  generation,  for  what  we  know, 
has  some  truth  which  the  older  generation  may  have 
failed  to  apprehend.  Even  a  child  can  instruct  its 
elders,  by  good  example,  by  innocent  questions,  by 
simple  statements.  Elihu  "was  young,"  and  the  three 
friends  "  were  very  old ; "  yet  to  him,  and  not  to  them, 
was  entrusted  the  message  of  pointing  out  the  true 
answer  to  the  great  difficulty  which  had  perplexed 
them  all.  It  was  indeed  no  new  truth  which  he  put 
before  them  ;  but  it  was,  for  that  very  reason,  the 
more  needed  that  the  quick  and  lively  eye  of  youth 


i38 


SERMONS.— NEW  YORK. 


[in. 


should  rightly  perceive  it  and  apply  it.  So  to  put 
forth  old  truths  that  they  may  with  each  successive 
age  wear  a  new  aspect;  so  to  receive  new  truths  that 
they  may  not  clash  rudely  with  the  old ;  this  is  the 
function  which  God  entrusts  to  each  new  generation 
of  mankind.    So,  again  and  again, 

God  hath  fulfilled  Himself  in  many  ways, 

Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world. 

So,  again  and  again,  new  life  has  been  breathed 
into  expiring  systems,  new  meanings  into  ancient 
creeds,  new  applications  have  been  given  to  the 
most  venerable  truths.  The  younger  nations  are 
called  to  take  charge  of  the  older  races.  A  new 
world,  as  '  our  English  statesman  said,  is  called  into 
being  to  redress  the  misfortunes  of  the  old.  Let  not 
that  new  world  fail  of  its  mission  from  any  narrow- 
ness of  view,  or  darkness  of  insight,  or  false  shame, 
or  false  presumption. 

(2.)  Secondly,  the  Book  of  Job  impresses  upon  us 
that  there  are  problems  beyond  the  power  of  man  to 
exhaust ;  and  in  that  certainty  of  uncertainty  it  is  our 
privilege  to  rest.  The  human  mind,  it  has  been  well 
said,  may  and  ought  to  repose  as  calmly  before  a 
confessed   and  unconquerable   difficulty  as   before  a 


THE  PERPLEXITIES  OF  LIFE. 


confessed  and  discovered  truth.  The  error,  both  of 
Job  and  of  his  friends,  had  been  to  think  that  they 
could  measure  the  counsels  of  God,  that  they  could 
determine  the  course  of  His  judgments  :  the  friends 
declaring  that  because  Job  was  afflicted  he  could  not 
be  righteous  ;  Job  complaining  that,  because  he  was 
righteous,  he  ought  not  to  be  afflicted.  Elihu,  on  the 
other  hand,  and  the  voice  from  the  whirlwind,  taught 
that  "touching  the  Almighty  we  cannot  find  Him 
out;"  "He  is  excellent  in  power  and  justice,  and  in 
plenty  of  judgment ;  He  will  not  afflict  without  need." 
In  that  power  and  justice  and  judgment,  no  less  than 
in  His  mercy  and  love,  let  us  place  our  absolute  con- 
fidence. "God,"  as  the  old  proverb  says,  "never  smites 
with  both  hands  at  once  ; "  with  one  hand  He  strikes 
to  afflict,  but  the  other  is  uplifted  behind  the  veil,  to 
bless,  to  heal,  and  to  purify.  We  may  rest  assured 
that  the  Supreme  Mind  has  a  purpose,  even  though 
we  do  not  see  it. 

And  how  is  this  truth  enforced  on  Job  ?  '  It 
is  by  the  unfolding  before  him  of  the  wonders 
of  the  natural  world.  To  him,  as  to  all  the 
ancient  Gentiles,  "the  invisible  things  of  God,  even 
His  eternal  power  and  Godhead,"  would  be  chiefly 
seen  through  the  creation  of  the  world,  through  the 


HO  SERMONS.— NEW  YORK.  [HI 

things  which  are  made.  To  us  a  deeper  revelation 
has  been  vouchsafed ;  and  were  another  Elihu  to 
appear  before  us  to  confirm  our  faith,  it  would  not 
only  be  from  the  wonders  of  nature,  but  from  the 
"still  small  voice"  of  the  Gospel  and  of  the  Spirit, 
which  tells  us  that  in  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus 
Christ  the  will  of  God  and  the  duties  of  man  are  for 
ever  united.  The  cross  of  Christ  is  the  pledge  to  us 
that  the  deepest  suffering  may  be  the  condition  of 
the  highest  blessing,  the  sign,  not  of  God's  displeasure, 
but  of  His  widest  and  most  compassionate  love. 
But  though  we  have  thus  been  raised  above  the 
need  of  Elihu's  ancient  mission,  yet  still  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  natural  world  is  often  the  best  guide  to 
us,  as  to  Job;  and  the  more,  because  our  view  of 
nature  is  so  much  fuller  than  it  could  be  in  the  days 
of  the  Patriarch.  To  the  primeval  ages  of  the  world, 
the  fiery  horse  of  the  wilderness,  the  monsters  of  the 
river  Nile,  were  more  wonderful,  and  are  therefore  in 
this  book  more  largely  described  even  than  "  the 
sweet  influences  of  Pleiades,"  or  "the  bands  of  Orion;" 
even  more  than  "  the  watercourse,  or  the  over- 
flowing of  the  thunder."  But  to  us,  who  have  been 
taught  the  immeasurable  distances,  the  incalculable 
magnitude,   of  the    heavenly   bodies,  which  to  Job 


p.]         THE  PERPLEXITIES  OF  LIFE.  141 

seemed  only  twinkling  points  in  the  firmament  of 
heaven  ;  who  have  been  taught  the  wonderful  system 
of  the  movements  of  cloud  and  storm,  which  in 
those  older  times  must  have  seemed  to  be  separate 
shocks  and  isolated  convulsions;  to  us  the  argument 
in  the  closing  speeches  of  the  Book  of  Job  is 
strengthened  a  hundredfold.  We  know  that  what  we 
see  are  but  the  outskirts  of  creation ;  that  the  power 
and  the  wisdom  which  rule  this  vast  universe  must 
be  beyond  the  reach,  not  only  of  our  understanding, 
but  of  our  furthest  speculation.  Many  a  one  who 
has  been  perplexed  by  the  uncertainties  and  conten- 
tions of  history,  has  been  strengthened  by  the  certainty 
and  the  unity  of  science.  "The  moral  perversions  of 
mankind  would  have  made  an  infidel  of  me,"  said  one 
of  the  best  prelates  of  this  century,  "  but  for  the 
counteracting  impression  of  a  Divine  providence  in 
the  works  of  nature."  Whatever  else  the  discoveries 
of  modem  science  teach  us  they  teach  us  this — th,e 
marvellous  complexity  and  the  unbroken  order  of  the 
material  world ;  they  indicate  to  us,  how  vast  is  the 
treasure-house  of  resources  by  which  the  immortality 
of  each  separate  spirit,  the  inter-communion  of  spirit 
with  spirit,  and  of  all  with  God,  may  be  sustained  in 
a  higher  world.    They  confirm  the  thought  that  "now 


142  SERMONS.— NEW  YORK.  [m. 


we  know  in  part,  and  see  through  a  glass  darkly,"  but 
that  in  the  infinite  immensity  in  which  God  dwells, 
and  into  which  we  hope  we  may  pass  after  death, 
"we  shall  know  even  as  we  are  known." 

A  famous  English  philosopher,  dear  to  the  Western 
world — Bishop  Berkeley,  whose  footsteps,  whose  relics, 
and  whose  name  the  traveller  follows  with  interest  at 
Newport,*  at  Hartford.t  at  Yale,+  and  even  to  the 
shores  of  the  Pacific  §— has  described  a  comparison 
which  occurred  to  him  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  in 
London,  as  he  saw  a  fly  crawling  up  one  of  the  pillars  : 
"  It  required,"  he  says,  "  some  comprehension  in  the 
eye  of  an  intelligent  spectator  to  take  in  at  one  view 
the  various  parts  of  the  building,  in  order  to  observe 
their  symmetry  and  design  j  but  to  the  fly,  whose 
prospect  was  confined  to  a  little  part  of  one  of  the 
stones  of  a  single  pillar,  the  joint  beauty  of  the  whole, 
or  the  distinctive  use  of  its  parts,  were  inconspicuous, 
and  nothing  could  appear  but  the  small  inequalities  on 
the  surface  of  the  hewn  stone,  which,  in  the  view  of 

*  In  the  house  called  "Whitehall,"  the  rocks  called  "Para- 
dise," and  in  Trinity  Church,  at  Newport. 

t  His  chair  is  in  the  college  at  Hartford. 

t  His  legacy  of  books  is  in  the  library  at  Yale. 

§  The  new  college  at  San  Francisco  is,  I  am  told,  called  after 
Berkeley's  name. 


in.]         THE  PERPLEXITIES  OE  LITE.  143 


that  insect,  seemed  to  be  so  many  deformed  rocks 
and  precipices."  That  fly  on  the  pillar  is  indeed  the 
likeness  of  each  human  being  as  he  creeps  across 
the  vast  pillars  which  uphold  the  universe.  That 
crushing  sorrow,  which  appears  to  us  only  a  yawning 
chasm,  or  a  hideous  obstruction,  may  turn  out  to  be 
but  the  jointing  or  the  cement  that  binds  together 
the  fragments  of  our  existence  into  one  solid  whole. 
That  dark  and  crooked  way,  through  which  we  have 
to  grope  in  doubt  and  fear,  may  be  but  a  curve, 
which,  in  the  sight  of  superior  intelligences,  shall 
appear  to  be  the  tracery  of  some  elaborate  ornament 
or  the  span  of  some  majestic  arch.  Everything  which 
enables  us  to  see  how  the  universe  is  one  whole ; 
everything  which  shows  that  man  is  bound  by  subtle 
links  with  all  the  other  parts  of  creation;  everything 
which  shows  us  how  many  of  the  miseries  of  the 
world  of  man,  the  wretchedness  of  improvidence, 
intemperance,  and  sensuality,  are  also  breaches  of 
the  fixed  rules  of  nature;  everything  which  confirms 
us  in  the  belief  that  the  revelation  of  the  Infinite 
and  the  Divine  is  not  confined  to  a  single  race  or 
Church,  but  pervades,  more  or  less,  all  the  religious 
instincts  of  mankind ;  everything  which  impresses  upon 
us  the  continuity,  the  unity  of  the  Livine  and  human, 


144 


SERMONS.— NEW  YORK. 


[lit 


of  the  sacred  and  secular,  brings  us  into  the  frame 
of  mind  which  the ,  Bible  and  experience  alike  im- 
press upon  us  as  needful  for  the  reception  of  the 
first  principles  of  true  religion. 

(3.)  This  brings  us  to  the  third  lesson  contained  in 
the  Book  of  Job.  "  I  abhor  myself,"  says  the  Patriarch, 
"  and  repent  in  dust  and  ashes."  He  was  called  away 
from  dwelling  on  himself,  and  on  his  own  virtue,  to 
feel  that  he  was  in  the  presence  of  One  before  whom 
all  earthly  goodness  and  wisdom  seemed  insignificant. 
It  was  the  same  truth  to  which  the  friends  had  vainly 
endeavoured  to  bring  him,  but  to  which  they  could 
not  bring  him,  because  they  combined  it  with  a  con- 
tradiction against  which  his  conscience  and  reason 
revolted. 

He  had  been  right  in  the  assertion  of  his  own 
innocence ;  his  friends  had  been  wrong  in  believing 
that  his  calamities  were  judgments  on  his  sins.  Still 
he  was  at  last  brought  to  confess  that  "though  he 
had  whereof  to  glory,  yet  not  before  God."  Looking 
at  himself,  not  in  comparison  with  other  men,  but  in 
comparison  with  the  All-holy  and  the  All-pure,  his 
sufferings  seemed  to  assume  another  aspect.  "God  is 
in  heaven,  and  we  upon  earth ;  let  Him  do  as  seemeth 
Him  best."    Those  upon  whom  the  tower  in  Siloam 


THE  PERPLEXITIES  OF  LIFE. 


fell  were  not  sinners  above  the  rest  of  mankind,  but 
all  such  calamities  warn  us  to  take  a  serious  and  solemn 
view  of  our  mortal  condition.  They  bring  us  into  the 
presence  of  Him,  before  whom  we  feel  that  sense  of 
sin  and  infirmity  which  we  naturally  shrink  from  ex- 
pressing in  the  presence  of  our  fellow-men.  When  we 
think  of  Him  as  He  appeared  to  Job  in  the  works  of 
creation,  when  we  think  of  Him  from  whom  nothing  is 
hidden,  and  in  the  light  of  whose  countenance  our 
secret  sins  are  set,  it  is  no  mock  humility,  but  the 
simple  expression  of  our  most  enlightened  conscience, 
to  abhor  ourselves  before  Him,  and  repent  in  dust 
and  ashes. 

A  pious  old  Churchman  of  the  last  generation, 
Joshua  Watson,  used  to  say  that  as  life  advanced  his 
abhorrence  of  evil  in  himself  and  his  loathing  for 
it  so  increased,  that  in  his  latter  days  confessions 
of  sin,  which  in  youth  had  seemed  to  be  somewhat 
exaggerated,  became  the  sincere  voice  of  his  heart. 

No  doubt  there  is  another  instinct  in  human  nature, 
the  very  reverse  of  this,  the  consciousness  that  we  are 
made  in  the  image  of  God,  that  we  are  the  masters  of 
our  own  destiny,  the  heirs  of  all  the  ages,  crowned 
with  glory  and  honour,  some  of  us  with  the  faculties, 
all  perhaps  with  the  hopes  of  angels.    It  was  the  glory 


146  SERMONS.— NEW  YORK.  fm. 

of  one  of  the  great  religious  teachers  of  New  England 
to  have  brought  out  this  feeling  with  a  force  which, 
even  if  exaggerated,  has  left  an  enduring  mark  on  his 
age,  which  neither  in  Europe  nor  America  can  easily 
be  effaced.  It  is  part  of  the  buoyancy  and  elasticity 
of  mind  which  is  so  remarkable  a  heritage  of  this 
people,  and  which  gives  so  strong  a  pledge  of  their 
future  greatness. 

Yet  still,  the  self-abasement  of  Job  is  not  the  less 
a  necessary  element  of  that  perfect  and  upright 
character,  of  which  he  is  represented  as  the  type. 

And  not  only  in  moral  matters,  but  in  intellectual 
matters  also,  do  we  learn  this  need  for  humility.  How 
often  do  we  hear  ignorant,  half-educated  men,  how 
often  do  we  hear  audacious  young  men,  pronouncing 
on  difficult  problems  of  science  and  religion  with  a 
certainty  which  to  those  of  mature  years  seems  abso- 
lutely ridiculous.  We  all  have  need  of  the  grace  of 
humility.  We  have  need  of  the  conviction  that  many 
of  us,  perhaps  most  of  us,  are  but  as  dust  and  ashes 
in  the  presence  of  the  great  oracles  in  the  various 
branches  of  knowledge  that  Divine  wisdom  has 
raised  up  amongst  us.  We  have  need  of  willingness, 
of  eagerness  to  be  corrected  by  those  who  fear  to 
tread  where  we  rush  boldly  in,  and  of  a  desiie  to 


THE  PERPLEXITIES  OF  LIFE. 


147 


improve  ourselves  by  every  light  that  dawns  upon  us 
from  the  past  or  the  present,  from  the  east  or  from  the 
west,  from  heaven  or  from  earth. 

(4.)  Lastly,  the  sense  of  the  vastness  of  the  universe, 
and  of  the  imperfection  of  our  own  knowledge,  may 
help  us  in  some  degree  to  understand,  as  in  the  case 
of  Job,  not,  indeed,  the  origin  of  evil  and  of  suffering, 
but,  at  any  rate,  something  of  its  possible  uses  and 
purposes.  We  look  round  the  world  and  we  see  cruel 
perplexities — the  useless  spared,  the  useful  taken ;  the 
young  and  happy  removed,  the  old  and  miserable 
lingering  on;  happy  households  broken  up  under  our 
feet,  disappointed  hopes,  and  the  failure  of  those  to 
whom  we  looked  up  with  reverence  and  respect.  We 
go  through  these  trials  with  wonder  and  fear;  and 
we  ask  whereunto  this  will  grow.  But  has  nothing 
*n  gained  ?  Yes,  that  has  been  gained  which 
othing  else,  humanly  speaking,  could  give.  We  may- 
have  gained  a  deeper  knowledge  of  the  mind  of 
God,  and  a  deeper  insight  into  ourselves.  Truths 
which  once  seemed  mere  words,  received  without 
heed  and  uttered  without  understanding,  may  have 
become  part  of  ourselves.  In  time  past  we  could  say, 
"  We  heard  of  God  by  the  hearing  of  the  ear,"  but 
now  we  can  say,  "  Our  eye   seeth    Him."  Humility 


148  SERMONS.— NEW  YORK.  •  \in. 

for  ourselves,  charity  for  others,  self-abasement  before 
the  Judge  pf  all  mankind,  these  are  the  gifts  that 
even  the  best  men,  and  even  the  worst  men,  may  gain 
by  distrust,  by  doubt,  and  by  difficulty. 

May  I  close  these  words  by  an  illustration  drawn 
from  the  lips  of  a  rough  seafaring  man,  pne  of  the 
few  survivors  of  a  great  wreck  which  took  place 
some  years  ago,  when  a  crowded  steamship  foundered 
in  the  stormy  waters  of  the  Bay  of  Biscay?  As  soon 
as  those  who  had  escaped  from  the  sinking  vessel 
found  themselves  in  a  small  boat  on  the  raging  sea, 
they  discovered  that  their  chief  danger  came,  not 
from  the  massive  sweep  of  the  waters,  but  from  the 
angry  breaking  waves  which  descended  upon  them 
from  time  to  time,  and  against  which  every  eye  and 
hand  had  to  watch  with  unabated  attention.  As  the 
shades  of  evening  grew  on,  the  survivor  who  told  me 
the  story  said  that  his  heart  sank  at  the  thought  that 
in  the  darkness  of  the  night  it  would  be  impossible  to 
see  those  insidious  breakers,  and  that  sooner  or  later 
the  boat  would  be  engulfed  by  them.  But  with  the 
darkness  there  came  a  corresponding  safety.  Every 
one  of  those  dangerous  waves,  as  it  rolled  towards 
them,  was  crested  with  phosphoric  light,  which  showed 
its  coming  afar  off,  and  enabled  the  seamen  to  guard 


HI.] 


THE  PERPLEXITIES  OF  LIFE. 


149 


against  it  as  carefully  as  if  they  had  been  in  full 
daylight.  The  spirits  of  the  little  company  revived, 
and  though,  from  time  to  time,  the  cowards  or  the 
desperadoes  amongst  them  were  for  turning  back,  or 
driving  an  oar  through  the  frail  boat's  side,  the 
coruscations  guided  them  through  the  night ;  and 
they  did  at  last,  in  the  early  dawn,  catch  a  view 
of  the  distant  vessel  by  which  they  were  saved. 
That  crest  of  phosphoric  light  on  the  top  of  those 
breaking  billows  was  as  the  light  of  Divine  grace,  the 
compensating  force  of  Providence,  in  the  darkness  of 
this  mortal  night,  and  on  the  waves  of  this  trouble- 
some world.  The  perplexity,  the  danger,  the  grief, 
often  brings  with  it  its  own  remedy.  On  each  burst- 
ing wave  of  disappointment  and  vexation  there  is  a 
crown  of  heavenly  light  which  reveals  the  peril,  and 
shows  the  way,  and  guides  us  through  the  roaring 
storm.  Out  of  doubt  comes  faith ;  out  of  grief 
comes  hope ;  and  "  to  the  upright  there  ariseth  up 
light  in  the  darkness."  With  each  new  temptation 
comes  a  way  to  escape  j  with  each  new  difficulty 
comes  some  new  explanation.  As  life  advances,  it 
does  indeed  seem  to  be  as  a  vessel  going  to  pieces, 
as  though  we  were  on  the  broken  fragments  of  a 
ship,  or  in  a  solitary  skiff  on  the  waste  of  waters  j 


ISO  SERMONS.— NEW  YORK.  [ml 

but  so  long  as  our  existence  lasts  we  must  not  give 
up  the  duty  of  cheerfulness  and  hope. 

The  sense  that  kept  us  back  in  youth 

From  all  intemperate  gladness, 
That  same  good  instinct  now  forbids 

Unprofitable  sadness. 

He  who  has  guided  us  through  the  day  may  guide 
us  through  the  night  also.  The  pillar  of  darkness 
often  turns  into  a  pillar  of  fire.  Let  us  hold  on 
though  the  land  be  miles  away ;  let  us  hold  on  till  the 
morning  break.  That  speck  on  the  distant  horizon 
may  be  the  vessel  for  which  we  must  shape  our  course. 
Forwards,  not  backwards,  must  we  steer — forwards  and 
forwards,  till  the  speck  becomes  a  mast,  and  the 
mast  becomes  a  friendly  ship.  Have  patience  and 
perseverance;  believe  that  there  is  still  a  future  before 
us;  and  we  shall  at  last  reach  the  haven  where  we 
would  be. 


IV. 


THE  USES  OF  CONFLICT. 

PREACHED   IN  THE  CATHEDRAL  OF  QUEBEC,   OCTOBER  20,  1878. 

"  Who  is  this  that  cometh  from  Edom,  with  dyed  garments  from 
Bozrah  ?  this  that  is  glorious  in  his  apparel,  travelling  in  the  great- 
ness of  his  strength? 

"  I  that  speak  in  righteousness,  mighty  to  save. 

"Wherefore  art  thou  red  in  thine  apparel,  and  thy  garments  like 
him  that  treadeth  in  the  wine-fat  ? 

"I  have  trodden  the  wine-press  alone,  and  of  the  people  there 
was  none  with  me  :  for  I  will  tread  them  in  mine  anger,  and  trample 
them  in  my  fury  ;  and  their  blood  shall  be  sprinkled  upon  my 
garments,  and  I  will  stain  all  my  raiment.  For  the  day  of  ven- 
geance is  in  my  heart,  and  the  year  of  my  redeemed  is  come." — 
Isaiah  lxiii.  1-4. 

This  passage  belongs  to  that  second  portion  of  the 
Book  of  Isaiah  in  which  the  Prophet  is  anxiously 
looting  forward  to  the  return  of  his  people  from 
the  Babylonian  captivity.  He  supposes  himself  to 
be  at  Jerusalem,  and  he  describes  that  he  sees  a 
figure  advancing  from  a  distance,  advancing  from 
the  south,  from  the  red  mountains  where  dwelt  the 


152  SERMONS  — QUEBEC.  [iv. 

old  hereditary  enemies  of  Judah,  the  children  of  the 
red-haired  Esau,  who,  in  the  day  of  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem,  had  said  :  "  Down  with  it,  down  with  it, 
even  to  the  ground  !"  His-  form  is  terrible  to  behold. 
His  robes  are  scarlet,  as  with  the  vivid  colour  of  the 
rocks  of  Petra,  from  whence  he  comes — Petra,  "the 
rose-red  city" — crimson  as  the  cliffs  from  which  the 
fastness  of  Bozrah  looks  down  over  the  Promised  Land. 
"  Who  is  this  that  cometh  from  Edom  ?  with  dyed 
garments  from  Bozrah  ?  this  that  is  glorious  in  his 
apparel,  '  tossing  back  his  head  '  in  the  greatness  of  his 
strength?"  And  from  the  far-off  conqueror  comes  the 
gracious  answer  :  "  It  is  I  that  speak  '  of  righteousness,' 
I  that  am  mighty  to  save  " — I,  who  not  only  speak  of 
what  is  right  and  true,  but  come,  at  all  hazards,  to  do 
it,  and  carry  it  on  to  victory. 

Once  again  the  Prophet  gazes  on  those  blood- 
red  garments,  as  their  colour  flashes  more  distinctly 
on  his  view.  He  sees  that  they  are  not,  as  they 
seemed  in  the  distance,  the  scarlet  mantle  worn  by 
the  warrior  chiefs  of  the  Arab  tribes,  but  rather  like 
the  raiment  of  those  who,  in  southern  and  eastern 
countries,  enter  the  wine-press  at  the  vintage,  and 
with  naked  feet  crush  the  purple  clusters,  and  press 
out  the  juice  of  the  grape,  till  they  wade  knee-deep  in 


IV.] 


THE  USES  OF  CONFLICT. 


'S3 


a  foaming  crimson  torrent,  which  dashes,  as  in  waves 
and  fountains  of  blood,  over  the  clothes  of  the  treaders. 
"  Why  art  thou  red  in  thine  apparel,  and  thy  gar- 
ments like  him  that  treadeth  in  the  wine-fat  ? "  And 
the  answer  comes  once  more :  "  I  have  trodden  the 
wine-press  alone,  and  of  the  people  there  was  none 
with  me.  For  I  trod  them  down  in  mine  anger,  and 
trampled  them  in  my  fury ;  and  their  blood  was 
sprinkled  on  my  garments ;  and  I  have  stained  all 
my  raiment.  For  the  day  of  vengeance  is  in  mine 
heart,  and  the  year  of  my  redeemed  is  come."  The 
retribution  was  at  last  to  fall  on  the  savage  tribes  of 
Edom ;  the  crisis  of  their  fate  was  surely  to  approach, 
and  Israel  was  no  more  to  be  vexed  by  their  insolent 
triumph  j  a  bright  era  was  to  open  before  the  chosen 
people,  as  when  their  ancestors  had  marched  through 
these  mountains  into  their  place  of  destined  rest. 

Such  is  the  literal  occasion  of  the  prophecy,  and 
it  is  in  part  suggested  by  the  like  denunciations  of 
vengeance  against  Edom  in  the  thirty-fourth  chapter. 
It  is  one  of  the  instances  in  which  Hebrew  prophecy 
repeats  itself  from  century  to  century ;  the  later  prophet 
taking  up  and  applying  what  the  earlier  prophet  had 
first  uttered. 

The  vision,  as  we  see,  reflects  in  the  deepest  dye 


154  SERMONS.— QUEBEC.  [iv. 

what  may  be  called  the  sanguinary  character  of  ancient 
Jewish  history.  It  is  one  of  the  few  visions,  almost 
the  only  vision,  of  this  kind  in  the  utterances  of  the 
Evangelical  Prophet.  It  breaks  in  upon  the  peaceful 
melodious  strains  of  his  salutations  and  consolations 
like  a  thunder-clap  in  a  clear  sky,  like  the  clash  of 
arms  in  a  bridal  feast.  It  breathes  throughout  the 
deep  undying  hatred  of  the  race  of  Jacob  towards 
the  race  of  Esau,  roused  to  the  utmost  pitch  by  the 
ungenerous  delight  which  the  Edomites  had  taken  in 
the  fall  of  their  ancient  rival.  It  is  the  concentration 
of  the  cry  for  vengeance  which  runs  through  the 
brief  prophecy  of  Obadiah,  and  which  closes  with 
a  sunset  of  blood  the  tender  delicate  pathos  of 
the  hundred  and  thirty-seventh  Psalm.  It  lent  its 
imagery  to  that  same  fierce  sentiment  continued  in 
after  ages  by  the  Jewish  people,  when  the  name  of 
their  dead  enemy  Edom  was  transferred  to  their  living 
enemy,  the  Roman  Empire;  and  yet  again  when  Chris- 
tendom began  those  cruel  persecutions  of  the  Jewish 
race  which  ought  still  to  raise  a  blush  of  shame  on 
every  Christian  cheek,  when  the  soul  of  Esau  was 
believed  by  Israelite  Rabbis  to  live  over  again  in  the 
Churches  and  States  of  Europe,  and  echoes,  not  loud 
but  deep,  of  the  curses  of  the  ancient  prophets  still 


iv.]  THE  USES  OF  CONFLICT.  155 


rang  in  many  a  synagogue,  in  many  a  house  of  traffic, 
in  Rome  and' in  Toledo,  in  Venice  and  in  York. 

So  regarded  in  its  first  historical  meaning,  the  pro- 
phecy belongs  to  that  outward  vesture  of  Divine  things 
which  waxeth  old  and  is  folded  up  ;  deeply  instructive 
in  its  relations  to  the  history  of  the  ancient  Jewish 
race,  but  on  that  very  account  with  no  permanent 
bearing  on  the  fortunes  of  Christendom  or  of  man- 
kind. But  the  more  keenly  we  figure  to  ourselves 
this  external  difference,  the  more  fully  do  we  perceive 
the  significance  of  the  inward  spirit  which  gives  to 
this,  and  other  like  words  of  Jewish  prophecy,  an 
enduring  value.  Edom  has  passed  away.  Whether 
it  received  its  death-blow  from  the  Maccabees  or  the 
Romans,  the  race  of  Esau  no  longer  haunts  the  rocks 
of  Petra  or  the  fortress  of  Bozrah.  Other  nations 
have  peopled  these  lonely  fastnesses.  The  maledic- 
tions of  the  prophets  as  regards  this  particular  object 
have  exhausted  themselves  ages  ago.  But  not  so  the 
principles  which  lie  at  the  root  of  those  maledictions — 
like  a  pearl,  as  a  well-known  interpreter  of  prophecy 
said,  "  like  a  pearl  at  the  bottom  of  the  deep  sea." 

There  are,  we  may  say,  when  we  examine  this 
prophecy,  two  such  principles — one  of  more  limited, 
and  one  of  more  universal  application.     The  more 


I56  SERMONS.— QUEBEC.  [iv. 

limited  application  is  that  which  arises  out  of  the 
question  :  What  was  the  source  of  this  bitter,  inex- 
piable hatred  against  the  race  of  Edom?  It  was 
this.  The  enmity  of  Edom,  unlike  the  enmity  of 
Babylon  or  Nineveh,  was  not  the  attack  of  open  foes 
in  fair  fight;  it  was  the  destruction  of  friends  by 
friends ;  it  was  the  desertion  of  kinsmen  by  kinsmen  j 
it  was  the  crime  of  hounding  on  the  victorious  party, 
of  "standing  by  on  the  other  side  "  in  the  day  of  the 
sorest  need  of  the  weaker  or  the  vanquished  cause. 
This  is  no  obsolete  evil  confined  to  ancient  days. 
The  wicked  old  proverb,  "  Howl  with  the  wolves,"  is 
a  maxim  which  is  still  but  too  common — a  maxim  as 
hateful  to  the  Christian  evangelist  as  it  was  to  the 
Hebrew  prophet.  The  prophecy  in  this  sense  breathes 
the  true  chivalry  of  human  nature,  of  Christian  nature. 
It  calls  upon  us  all,  old  and  young,  to  remember 
that  to  trample  on  a  fallen  foe,  whether  in  public  or 
in  private  lire,  is  neither  wise  nor  generous. 

But  there  is  a  more  general  truth  involved  in  the 
very  sound  of  the  heart-stirring  words,  a  bracing  and 
invigorating  note,  as  though  we  heard  the  voice  of  a 
trumpet  talking  with  us.  What  is  this  universal  truth  ? 
It  is  that  good  is  achieved  in  this  mixed  world  of  ours 
chiefly  by  struggle  and  combat.    There  is  always  the 


IV.] 


THE  USES  OF  CONFLICT. 


57 


red  range  of  Edom  to  be  surmounted  before  we 
can  reach  the  Promised  Land;  there  is  always  the 
wine-press  to  be  trodden  before  we  drink  the  juice 
of  the  grapes;  there  is  always  the  battle  to  be  fought 
before  the  victory  is  won.  It  is  not  enough  to  speak 
of  righteousness ;  we  must  be  active  in  doing  it.  It 
is  not  enough  to  wait  till  others  help  us ;  we  must 
act  and  fight,  we  must  do  and  dare,  though  we  stand 
alone — though  "  of  the  people  there  be  none  with  us." 
We  may  look,  and  there  will  be  none  to  help ;  we 
may  wonder  that  there  is  none  to  uphold  ;  but  a  just 
cause  is  its  own  support ;  our  own  arm,  in  the  strength 
of  God,  may  bring  salvation  to  us ;  the  fury,  righteous 
passion,  indignation,  enthusiasm  of  a  single  man  is 
enough  to  uphold  a  sinking  cause. 

Let  me  take  some  particular  instances  in  which 
this  general  principle  is  established. 

First,  let  me  speak  of  the  most  sacred  of  all  its 
exemplifications.  These  words  are  not,  indeed,  in  any 
strict  sense  of  the  phrase,  a  prediction  of  our  Saviour's 
coming.  They  are  never  quoted  as  such  in  the  New 
Testament.  They  have  no  historical  reference  to  His 
life.  But  they  are  something  much  more  than  a  pre- 
diction. They  are  a  prophecy  in  the  strict  sense  of 
the  word — that  is,  an  announcement  of  a  Divine  truth, 


158  SERMONS.— QUEBEC.  [iv. 

of  which  the  historical  manifestation  of  Jesus  Christ 
was  the  chief  end  and  the  crowning  example.  Not 
in  the  letter  but  in  the  spirit,  and  yet  partly  even  in 
the  letter,  the  thrilling  question  of  the  Prophet  might 
have  been  repeated  when  the  people  of  Jerusalem  stood 
round  the  open  space  on  Calvary,  and  saw  approaching 
up  that  mournful  way  a  figure  "whose  visage  was  marred 
more  than  any  man,  and  his  form  more  than  the  sons  of 
men."  His  garments  were  red  with  blood;  His  very 
sweat  was  as  it  were  great  drops  of  blood  falling 
down  to  the  ground.  "  Who  is  this  that  cometh  from 
Edom,  with  dyed  garments  from  Bozrah?  .  .  .  Where- 
fore art  thou  red  in  thine  apparel,  and  thy  garments 
like  him  that  treadeth  in  the  wine-fat?"  So  it  might 
well  be  asked,  in  accents  of  awe  mingled  with  grief; 
and  the  answer  is  the  same  as  to  the  Prophet :  "  I  that 
speak  of  righteousness,  and  am  also  mighty  to  save." 
Yes,  that  mean,  that  despised,  that  blood-stained,  that 
agonised  form  is  the  form  of  the  Invincible  Conqueror. 
He  has  not  only  been  the  Prophet,  the  Teacher  of 
righteousness;  He  has  also  been  mighty  to  put  His 
words  into  deeds,  His  promise  into  performance.  He 
is  alone.  His  friends  and  disciples  have  fled.  He  has 
trodden  the  wine-press  alone,  and  of  the  people  of 
His  age  there  was  none  with  Him.    But  in  the  midst 


IV.]  THE  USES  OF  CONFLICT.  159 


of  this  isolation  He  is  still  the  King  of  Kings  and 
Lord  of  Lords,  acknowledged  as  the  foremost  figure 
of  human  history,  as  the  clearest  personification,  of 
the  Divine  perfections.  His  own  arm  has  brought 
salvation  to  Him.  His  strong  love,  strong  as  death, 
hath  upholden  Him.  "  For  the  day,  not  of  vengeance, 
but  of  forgiveness,  is  in  His  heart,  and  the  year  of 
His  redeemed  is  come."  Out  of  that  dark  hour 
and  that  fierce  agony,  was  destined  to  be  brought 
the  redemption,  the  civilisation,  the  sanctification  of 
mankind. 

The  same  general  truth  which  lies  expressed  in  the 
vision  of  the  conqueror  of  Edom,  in  the  sufferings  of 
Christ,  can  also  be  seen  in  many  vicissitudes  of  human 
life.  Let  us  look  at  it  as  it  regards  individuals.  We 
are  here  guided  by  the  application  of  this  pro- 
phecy in  Scripture  itself.  Look  at  the  visions  in 
the  Apocalypse,*  where  the  older  language  is  worked 
up  again  in  a  new  form.  Look  at  that  vision  of  the 
heavenly  warriors  following  their  heavenly  Leader  on 
white  horses  as  He  rides  before  them  with  His  vesture 
dipped  in  blood.  Who  are  they  ?  Who  are  those 
celestial  champions  of  Christendom  who  come  in  the 
thickest  fray  to  help  those  that  have  no  helper  ?  There 


*  Rev.  xix.  11-16. 


i6o 


SERMONS.— Q  UEBEC. 


[nr. 


are  the  martyrs  for  the  early  Christian  faith,  who  literally 
came  with  their  garments  dyed  in  blood,  the  advanced 
guard,  the  forlorn  hope,  who  fought  their  way  through 
the  passes  of  Edom  for  us  and  for  themselves,  witnesses 
to  the  sacredness  of  conscience,  and  to  the  value  of 
a  noble  and  honourable  death.  There,  too,  are  the 
martyrs  of  truth  and  science,  who,  in  solitary  study, 
misunderstood,  neglected,  and  unrequited,  have  trodden 
the  wine-press  of  knowledge  alone ;  or  who — like  the 
earliest  explorers  and  discoverers  of  these  regions, 
who  fixed  the  first  European  habitation  on  this  spot 
— laboured  that  other  men  might  enter  into  their 
labours,  and  enjoy  the  Land  of  Promise,  which  they 
only  saw  in  the  far  futurity,  as  from  the  top  of  Pisgah. 
There,  too,  are  the  firm  companions  and  friends  of  our 
youth  and  age — faithful  through  good  report  and  evil, 
who  appear  at  the  right  moment,  like  guardian  angels 
at  our  side,  warding  off  temptation  and  misfortune, 
encouraging  us  when  there  was  no  one  else  to  en- 
courage, warning  us  when  there  was  no  one  else  to  warn, 
advising  us  in  spite  of  ourselves,  standing  by  us  when 
the  world  turned  against  us.  There,  also,  is  the  young 
boy  or  the  young  man,  at  school  or  college,  doing  what 
he  knows  to  be  right,  avoiding  what  he  knows  to  be 
wrong,  remembering  what  he  has   learned  at  home, 


IV.]  THE  USES  OF  CONFLICT.  161 

though  far  away.  There,  too,  are  the  pure-minded  and 
high-spirited  amongst  men,  who  stand  perhaps  alone 
in  a  frivolous,  selfish  circle,  yet  still  holding  their 
own  against  the  ridicule  of  foolish  enemies  or  the 
flattery  of  false  friends — determined  to  work,  though 
their  neighbours  are  idle ;  to  be  frugal,  though  those 
around  are  extravagant ;  to  be  truthful,  pure,  and 
temperate,  though  those  around  are  treacherous  and 
self-indulgent. 

And  again,  there  is  another  vision  in  the  Apo- 
calypse* in  which  the  same  figure  is  taken  up 
with  a  still  profounder  meaning :  "  What  are  these 
which  are  arrayed  in  white  robes,  and  with  palms 
in  their  hands,  and  whence  came  they?  These  are 
they  which  came  out  of  great  tribulation,  and  have 
washed  their  robes,  and  made  them  white  in  the 
blood  of  the  Lamb."  That  is  to  say :  These  are  they 
who  have  suffered,  not  only  in  temptation,  but  in  the 
innumerable  sorrows,  disappointments,  mortifications, 
and  changes  of  this  anxious  pilgrimage  of  life.  These 
are  they  who  have  been  refined  and  purified  in  that 
long  struggle  ;  who  have  learned  from  their  own 
sorrows  and  from  their  own  trials  to  feel  for  the 
sorrows  and  the  trials  of  others  ;  who  have  gained 


*  Rev.  vii.  13,  14. 


M 


162  SERMONS.— QUEBEC.  [iv. 

through  that  experience  a  power  beyond  their  own — ■ 
the  power  of  faith,  the  power  of  sympathy,  the  power 
of  rising  above  the  petty  cares  of  earth,  the  power  of 
discernment  between  what  is  solid  and  enduring  and 
what  is  false  and  fleeting.  Truly  that  blood  in  which 
their  white  robes  are  washed  is  the  blood  of  the  Lamb 
— not  the  blood  offered  to  appease  an  angry  God,  but 
the  life  blood  (the  blood  which  is  the  life)  of  the 
gentle  and  spotless  Lamb ;  the  drops  of  that  same 
agony  which  watered  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane,  filling 
up,  as  the  Apostle  says,  the  afflictions  of  Christ,  who 
was  tempted  like  as  we  are,  and  learned  wisdom  like 
us  by  suffering. 

And  if  this  great  law  of  Divine  redemption  be 
true  of  individuals,  if  struggle  and  suffering  be  their 
condition  of  good,  and  if  that  good  be  thus  the  key 
to  much  that  is  mysterious  in  the  suffering  and  the 
struggle,  so  also  it  is  in  regard  to  the  more  complex 
affairs  of  nations  and  Churches. 

Alas  !  if  we  look  over  the  history  of  the  world, 
how  often  it  seems  but  one  vast  blood-red  field,  one 
long  ascent  of  Calvary.  "Who  is  this  that  cometh 
from  Edom,  with  dyed  garments  from  Bozrah  ? " 
"  Wherefore  art  thou  red  in  thine  apparel,  and  thy 
garments  like  him  that  treadeth  in  the  wine-fat?"  Is 


IV.] 


THE  USES  OF  CONFLICT. 


163 


not  this  the  description  of  the  human  race  itself?  Is 
it  not  the  aspect  as  of  a  bleeding  warrior  emerging 
from  a  hard-won  light,  splashed  with'  the  gore  of  the 
slain,  plume  and  helmet  crushed,  sword  broken,  and 
armour  bruised  ?  When  we  look  on  the  desolation  of 
war,  its  necessary  horrors,  its  unnecessary  but  too  often 
concomitant  sins — Can  any  good,  we  are  sometimes 
tempted  to  say,  come  out  of  this  Edom,  this  Golgotha, 
this  vast  confusion  of  misery  ?  For  what  end  has  been 
this  waste  of  blood,  of  energy,  of  precious  lives,  of  noble 
souls,  of  high  intelligence  ?  Often,  indeed,  in  the  course 
of  human  history,  we  must  say  with  grief,  None — 
none  whatever.  In  one  sense  they  belong  to  that 
outward  frame  of  old  Hebrew  prophecy,  that  dismal 
imagery  of  vengeance  and  destruction  and  carnage, 
which  Christ  came  not  to  fulfil  but  to  destroy.  But, 
nevertheless,  here  also  the  inward  principle  of  the  pro- 
phecy still  holds  its  course.  There  is  something  even 
in  the  remembrance  of  former  wars,  something  in  the 
very  heat  of  the  turmoil  of  civil  or  national  conflicts, 
which  braces  our  nerves,  which  clears  the  atmosphere, 
which  dispels  frivolity,  which  restores  a  just  balance  of 
things  important  and  things  trivial,  which  compels  us 
to  look  into  ourselves,  which  sifts  and  tears  to  pieces 
the  false  pretences  and  false  arguments  of  every  party. 

m  2 


[64 


SERMONS.— QUEBEC. 


[iv. 


There  is  something  also  in  the  profession  of  a 
soldier  which  keeps  alive  before  the  world  the  in- 
estimable value  of  some  of  the  greatest  Christian 
virtues — courage,  discipline,  and  honour.  A  soldier's 
temptations  may  be  beyond  the  temptations  of  other 
men,  but  for  that  very  reason  the  example  of  a  good 
soldier,  pure,  and  just,  and  noble-minded,  is  beyond 
all  other  examples  a  city  set  on  a  hill,  a  fortress  that 
cannot  be  taken,  an  encouragement  to  the  weak  and 
wavering  everywhere.  In  the  midst  of  that  burning 
fiery  furnace  of  war  there  appears  a  Divine  Form 
walking  with  us  ;  we  know  not  whence  He  came,  or 
how  He  is  there,  but  He  will  at  last  prevail,  if  only 
we  have  grace  to  recognise  Him,  to  seize  the  oppor- 
tunities which,  out  of  these  excandescent  heats,  fly  off 
as  sparks  from  the  anvil.  As  iron  sharpcneth  iron,  so  is 
man  to  man.  War  and  conquest  are  amongst  the  woes 
of  God's  heaviest  judgments,  but  how  often  have  the 
finest  and  noblest  results  grown  out  of  it !  How  vast 
has  been  the  moral  impulse  given  to  national  life  by 
such  struggles,  whether  from  within  or  from  without ! 
Look  at  the  history  of  this  famous  place.  How  closely 
has  the  memory  of  later  years  bound  together  the  name.1; 
of  the  two  heroic  rival  chiefs  who  perished  on  the 
same  day,  almost  in  the  same  hour,  beneath  the  walls 


IV.]  THE  USES  OF  CONFLICT.  165 


of  Quebec  !  How  strong  an  incentive  to  the  best 
and  most  generous  feelings  of  human  nature  is  the 
joint  tribute  which  we  all  involuntarily  pay  to  Wolfe 
and  to  Montcalm  !  And,  again,  how  singular  is  the 
providence  which,  out  of  those  long  conflicts  between 
England  and  France  on  these  Western  shores,  has 
worked  out  the  peculiar  result  of  this  Dominion  of 
Canada,  where  the  language  and  the  manners  of  the 
two  great  civilising  races  of  Europe  flow  together, 
as  hardly  anywhere  else,  in  one  harmonious  stream, 
and  sustain  the  influencs  and  image  of  the  ancient 
monarchies  of  Europe,  side  by  side  with  -  the  great 
republic  of  this  New  World. 

And,  again,  if  the  principle  of  the  ancient  prophecy 
applies  to  the  turmoils  of  the  State,  no  less  is  it  true 
of  the  turmoils  of  the  Church.  There  again,  as  we 
look  at  the  divisions  of  Christendom  at  large,  or  of 
any  one  of  its  separate  Churches,  the  question  often 
arises,  Who  is  this  that  cometh  from  Edom  with 
garments  dyed  in  Christian  blood — the  seamless 
raiment  rent  in  twain  by  the  violence  of  Christian 
controversy?  Can  this  be  the  Prince  of  Peace?  Can 
this  be  the  God.  of  Love?  Can  this  be  the  Merciful 
and  the  Just?  Yet  here,  also,  is  another  side  to 
the   picture.     Here,   also,   must   the  Truth  of  God 


1 66  SERMONS.— QUEBEC.  [iv. 

enter  into  its  rest  by  hard-won  victory,  by  generous 
rivalry,  by  the  eager  conflict  of  soul  with  soul  and 
mind  with  mind.  Union  of  the  same  elements  is 
nothing ;  it  is  only  the  union  of  diverse  elements 
which  makes  unity  worth  having.  If  all  were  the 
eye,  where  were  the  hearing  ?  and  if  all  were  the 
ear,  where  were  the  seeing?  We  may  have  absolute 
agreement  and  sameness — every  face  like  every  other 
face,  every  mind  like  every  other  mind ;  but  we  should 
then  have  none  of  the  variety  of  nature,  none  of  the 
culture  of  civilisation,  none  of  the  richness  and  the 
fulness  of  Christianity.  But  in  proportion  as  any 
Church  is  civilised,  and  national,  and  comprehensive, 
there  must  be  divisions,  and  those  very  divisions  are 
the  sign  of  comprehension  and  of  vitality.  As  in  the 
State,  so  in  the  Church,  it  is  by  argument,  by  debate, 
by  the  intercourse  of  different  souls,  that  truth  is  sifted, 
and  light  struck  out,  and  faith  tried,  and  charity  per- 
fected. There  are  streams  of  religious  thought  which, 
like  the  Nile,  can  diffuse  beneficence  by  their  sole 
strength,  without  tributary  or  accessory  aid  ;  but  the 
stream  of  the  highest  Christian  truth,  in  this  respect, 
resembles  the  mighty  river,  the  glory- of  the  Western 
world,  which  flows  beneath  the  heights  of  Quebec,  and 
which  derives  its  force  and  majesty  from  that  peculiar 


iv.]  THE  USES  OF  CONFLICT.  167 


conformation  of  this  continent  which  has  made  it  the 
depositary  and  the  outlet  of  all  that  vast  volume  of  waters 
which,  in  hidden  springs,  and  immense  lakes,  and 
world-renowned  cataracts,  discharge  themselves  into  its 
broad  channel,  and  make  it  the  highway  of  the  nations. 
Such  is  true  Christianity,  accepting  and  including  all 
the  elements  of  life  which,  from  the  inland  seas  of  far 
antiquity,  or  the  rushing  torrents  of  impetuous  action, 
or  the  dissolving  foam  of  ethereal  speculation,  find  their 
way  into  its  capacious  bosom. 

No  doubt,  whether  in  the  Church  or  the  State,  there 
is  a  sense  in  which  these  divisions  may  become  our 
destruction  instead  of  our  edification.  There  is  a 
sense  in  which  a  house  divided  against  itself  cannot 
stand ;  in  which  the  river  of  life  may  be  so  swelled 
as  to  burst  its  bounds ;  and  that  is  when  these  divi- 
sions become  embittered  by  stupid  prejudice,  by 
personal  malignity,  when  each  exaggerates  the  faults 
of  each,  when  each  looks  upon  each,  not  as  an  element 
of  life  to  be  included,  but  as  an  element  of  death  to 
be  thrust  out.  That  indeed  is  Edom  without  Palestine, 
Golgotha  without  Redemption,  the  Crucifixion  without 
Christ. 

But  there  is  a  more  excellent  way  by  which 
differences  lead  to  counsel  and  to  strength.    It  is  the 


SERMONS— QUEBEC. 


[nr. 


comparison  of  truth  with  truth,  the  candour  which 
fair  discussion  engenders,  the  generosity  which  springs 
from  matured  knowledge,  the  conviction  which  springs 
from  honest  doubt,  the  determination  to  see  the  meaning 
which  lies  behind  the  words,  to  seek  in  different  practices 
and  doctrines  not  their  worst,  but  their  better  side. 

"  Who  is  this,"  we  may  once  more  ask,  "  that 
cometh  from  Edom — that  is  glorious  in  his  apparel, 
travelling  in  the  greatness  of  his  strength — leading  his 
people  through  the  deep,  as  a  horse  through  the 
wilderness,  that  they  should  not  stumble?"  It  is  indeed 
Christ  Himself.  It  is  the  Spirit,  the  Eternal  Spirit, 
of  His  life,  and  of  His  death,  of  His  acts,  and  of  His 
words.  It  is  those  who  see  in  Him  something  vaster 
and  higher  than  any  single  Church,  or  than  any  single 
leader,  who  see  in  Truth  something  greater  than  any 
one  of  the  particular  forms  of  Truth  j  who  see  in  love 
and  charity  something  grander  even  than  faith  or  hope, 
even  than  agreement  in  opinion,  even  than  uniformity 
in  worship.  Such  as  these  may,  with  their  Master, 
tread  the  wine-press  alone,  but  not  the  less  have  they 
the  future  in  their  hands  ;  and  in  the  faith  which 
breathes  this  spirit,  however  imperfect,  however  strug- 
gling, they  will  stand  fast  for  ever,  because  it  has  in  it 
the  pledge  of  immortality,  because  the  day  of  victory 


nr.] 


THE  USES  OF  CONFLICT. 


169 


is  in  its  heart.  The  blood  with  which  they  are  sprinkled 
is  not  the  blood  of  fierce  conflicts,  nor  yet  even  the 
blood  of  which  I  have  before  spoken,  wiring  out  by 
suffering,  whether  in  ourselves  or  in  others.  It  is  the 
blood  of  Christ  in  that  highest  sense  in  which  it  is 
used  in  the  Bible — not  merely  the  blood  of  His  agony, 
but  the  life-blood  of  His  Spirit,  which  alone  gives  force 
and  virtue  to  all  His  efforts  for  us  ;  the  life-blood  of 
Christ  and  Christendom,  which  is  love  or  charity — 
the  love  which  sees  in  the  service  of  man  the  best 
and  highest  means  of  the  service  of  God. 

We  have  spoken  of  all  the  various  manifestations 
of  principle  which  the  text  involves,  and  we  have 
travelled  far  away  from  the  blood-stained  vision  of  the 
Prophet  to  more  peaceful  and  homely  applications  of 
the  general  truth,  that  the  good  of  man  and  the  will 
of  God  can  only  be  carried  out  by  long  struggle  and 
exertion. 

Is  there  not  an  exemplification  of  this  truth  present 
with  peculiar  force  at  this  moment  ?  The  whole  city  of 
Quebec,  the  whole  Dominion  of  Canada  is  lamenting 
at  this  moment  the  departure  of  perhaps  the  most 
beloved  and  valued  ruler  who  has  ever  swayed  its 
counsels.    Or,  if  this  be  too  much  to  affirm  when  we 


I/O 


SERMONS.— QUEBEC. 


[IV. 


think  of  those  who  have  gone  before,  yet  at  least  we 
may  say  that  he  who  yesterday  took  his  last  farewell  of 
these  shores  showed  us  in  his  high  position  what  are 
the  special  qualities  by  which  rulers  have  made,  and 
can  make,  themselves  beloved  and  valued  by  those 
whom  they  are  called  to  govern.  This  is  not  the 
place,  nor  would  it  be  fitting  for  me,  to  speak  of  those 
peculiar  graces  and  gifts  which  enabled  your  late 
Governor  to  carry  out  so  successfully  his  exalted  mis- 
sion. But  there  is  one  aspect  under  which  his  example 
was  applicable,  not  only  to  all  statesmen,  but  to  all 
conditions  of  life.  Not  by  the  conflict  of  war  or 
struggle,  but  by  that  pouring  out  of  the  very  life-blood 
of  a  generous  nature,  was  the  work  accomplished  and 
the  recompense  attained.  Whatever  gifts  he  had  were 
all  used  to  the  uttermost  for  the  public  service.  What- 
ever graces  of  art  or  speech  had  been  given  to  him  by 
nature,  were  made  available  for  the  sake  of  rendering 
those  around  him  and  beneath  him  happy,  and  at  ease, 
and  useful.  No  stone  was  left  unturned  that  could  by 
him  be  turned  for  this  object;  no  time,  no  labour 
was  spared  that  could  forward  the  work  that  was  to 
be  done.  These  are  homely  arts,  but  they  are  arts 
often  neglected.  For  the  want  of  them  the  wheels  of 
the  world's  progress  drag  heavily;  by  the  use  of  them 


IV.] 


THE  USES  OF  CONFLICT. 


171 


the  course  of  civilisation  and  religion  runs  smoothly 
onward.  They  are  arts,  too,  which  in  our  humble 
measure  are  within  the  reach  of  all.  Each  can  use 
his  talents,  whatever  they  may  be,  with  that  ungrudging 
devotion  for  the  public  good  which  was  employed  in 
the  use  of  those  loftier  talents  in  that  high  place. 
Each  can  make  the  little  world  around  him  more 
happy  and  more  useful  by  determining  to  despise  and 
ignore  what  is  base  and  trivial,  by  resolving  to  make 
the  best  and  the  most  of  all  that  there  is  of  good, 
and  noble,  and  generous,  whether  in  ourselves  or  others. 
May  we  all  show  our  grateful  sense  of  him  whom  we 
have  lost  by  doing  likewise  each  in  our  sphere.  May 
the  successor,  who  in  a  few  weeks  will  take  his  place 
with  the  most  sacred  pledge  which  the  Sovereign  of 
England  has  yet  given  to  these  distant  possessions, 
in  like  manner  devote  the  energies  of  his  noble  and 
ancient  race,  and  the  purity  of  his  blameless  life,  to  the 
fulfilment  of  the  great  task  entrusted  to  him.  May 
he  and  she,  when  their  work  is  closed,  depart  with  the 
like  reward  of  a  grateful  people,  with  the  like  con- 
sciousness that  they  too  have  used  to  the  utmost  the 
greatness  of  their  strength ;  that  they  too  have  moved 
forward  the  hours  of  the  eternal  year  of  redemption 
from  all  evil,  and  of  advance  towards  all  good. 


"THERE  IS  NOTHING." 


PREACHED  AT  STOCKBRIDGE,  MASSACHUSETTS,  OCT.  27,  1878. 

"There  is  nothing." — I  Kings  xviii.  43. 

In  the  story  of  Elijah  on  Mount  Carmel  there  is 
a  striking  passage — made  to  some  of  us  yet  more 
striking  by  the  music  of  Mendelssohn  in  which  it  has 
been  enshrined — where  the  young  lad  attendant  on  the 
Prophet  ascends  the  highest  point  of  the  long  ridge 
of  the  mountain,  and  whilst  his  master  remains  on 
the  lower  level,  looks  out  over  the  wide  expanse  of 
the  Mediterranean  Sea.  It  is  a  scene  of  which  every 
step  can  still  be  identified.  The  boy  gazes,  in  the 
hope  that  the  Prophet's  earnest  prayer  may  bring 
down  the  long-desired  rain.  The  sun  had  sunk  into 
the  Western  Sea.  But  after  the  sunset  there  followed 
the  long  white  glow  so  common  in  the  evenings  of 
Eastern  countries.     Seven  times  the  youthful  watcher 


v.]  "  THERE  IS  NOTHING."  173 

went  up  and  looked,  and  seven  times  he  reported : 
"  There  is  nothing."  The  sky  was  still  clear  ;  the 
sea  was  still  calm.  At  last  out  of  the  far  horizon 
there  arose  a  little  cloud,  the  first  that  for  days  and 
months  had  passed  across  the  heavens.  It  was  no 
larger  than  an  outstretched  hand  ;  but  it  grew  in  the 
deepening  shades  of  evening,  and  quickly  the  whole 
sky  was  overcast,  and  the  forests  of  Carmel  shook  in 
the  welcome  sound  of  those  mighty  winds  which  in 
Eastern  regions  precede  a  coming  tempest.  The  cry 
of  the  boy  from  his  mountain  watch  had  hardly  been 
uttered  when  the  storm  broke  upon  the  plain,  the 
rain  descended,  the  Kishon  swelled  and  burst  over 
its  banks,  and  the  nation  was  delivered  from  its 
sufferings. 

This  is  jne  of  those  parables  of  nature  which  we 
may  apply  in  many  directions.  It  expresses  the  truth 
that  often,  out  of  seeming  nothingness,  there  arrives 
the  very  blessing  most  desired. 

(1.)  "  There  is  nothing."  So  the  disciples  thought 
when  from  the  top  of  Olivet  they  gazed  into  heaven 
after  their  departed  Master.  "There  was  nothing;" 
there  was  no  opening  in  that  sky  to  tell  them  whither 
He  had  gone.  They  would  see  Him  no  more  again. 
But  was  there  indeed  nothing  to  come?    Yes,  there 


SERMONS.— STOCKDRIDGE. 


[V. 


was  everything.  That  little  cloud  which  had  shrouded 
Him  from  their  sight  was  full  of  blessings.  In  a  few 
days  there  would  be  a  rushing  mighty  wind  that  would 
sweep  through  their  hearts  and  through  the  world. 
Christ  was  gone,  but  Christendom  and  Christianity 
were  coming.  The  earthly  life  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
was  over,  but  the  eternal  life  of  His  spirit  was  begin- 
ning. Greater  works  than  this  would  henceforth  be 
wrought  in  the  world,  because  He  was  gone  to  the 
Father. 

(2.)  "There  is  nothing."  So  we  think  as  we  look 
into  the  wide  world,  and  see  no  visible  trace  of  its 
Eternal  Maker  and  Ruler.  There  is  the  infinite  space, 
and  nothing,  as  far  as  we  can  see,  beyond  it.  There 
is  the  perplexity  and  misery  of  mankind,  and  nothing 
to  relieve  it.  We  say  :  "  O  that  Thou  wouldst  rend 
the  heavens  and  come  down  ! "  and  no  voice  answers 
to  us.  But  the  absence  of  any  especial  presence  is 
itself  an  expressive  indication  of  the  spiritual  nature 
of  things  Divine.  The  things  which  are  seen  are 
temporal ;  it  is  the  things  that  are  not  seen  which 
are  eternal.  Even  the  dry  light  of  critical  analysis 
has  thrown  a  flood  of  knowledge  on  the  Bible.  Even 
the  philosophers  of  the  last  century  quickened  and 
freshened   the  whole  atmosphere  of  religion  with  a 


v.]         '       "  THERE  IS  NOTHING."  175 

nobler  influence.  Science,  if  it  cannot  increase  our 
faith,  has  at  any  rate  purified  and  enlarged  it.  Even 
in  the  drought  of  the  latter  half  of  this  nineteenth 
century,  there  is,  if  we  look  for  it,  the  promise  of 
a  great  rain.  Even  in  the  silence  of  death,  even  in 
the  darkness  of  the  unseen  world,  we  have  the 
assurance  that  there  is  One  to  whom  the  darkness 
and  the  light  are  both  alike.  Let  us  hold  on — 
"knowing,  fearing  nothing;  trusting,  hoping  all." 

(3.)  "There  is  nothing."  So  we  say  to  ourselves 
as  in  the  blank  desolation  of  sorrow  we  look  on 
the  lonely  work  that  lies  before  us.  The  voice  that 
cheered  us  is  silent,  and  the  hand  that  upheld  us  is 
cold  in  the  grave.  So  has  thought  many  a  one,  like 
Elijah's  lad,  orphaned,  bereaved,  left  desolate,  who  is 
left  to  work  his  own  fortune,  who  feels  that  he  is 
alone  in  the  world.  But  out  of  that  tender  memory 
comes  at  last  a  cloud  of  blessings.  There  descends 
upon  our  dry  and  parched  souls  a  dew  as  of  the 
night  of  sorrow;  on  that  barren  and  dry  land  where 
no  water  is,  there  comes  an  abundance  of  rain,  and 
again  we  are  refreshed,  and  feel  that  the  very  solitude 
in  which  we  are  left  calls  forth  new  vital  energies. 

(4.)  "There  is  nothing."  So  it  would  seem  as  we 
look  at  the  small  materials  with  which  we  have  to 


176  SERMONS.— STOCKBRIDGE.  [v. 


carry  on  the  conflict  with  the  great  powers  of  nature. 
The  little  tube  with  which  Galileo,  like  the  boy  on 
Carmel,  looked  from  the  heights  of  Fiesole  on  the 
starry  heavens  —  how  sligl.t,  how  feeble  it  seemed ; 
yet  it  was  enough  to  reveal  an  unknown  universe, 
to  disclose  the  secrets  unknown  from  the  beginning 
of  the  world.  The  electric  spark  discovered  by  an 
American  printer,  so  subtle,  so  imperceptible,  what 
has  it  not  produced,  of  which  Benjamin  Franklin 
never  dreamed?  How  vast  are  the  forces  which 
the  indomitable  will  and  inexhaustible  energy  o/ 
this  generation  has  drawn  from  it — the  annihilation 
of  time  and  space,  the  girdle  around  the  world,  which 
to  Shakespeare  seemed  the  wildest  of  fairy  dreams, 
but  which  in  our  day  has  become  the  solid  chain 
on  which  hangs  the  grandest  enterprises  of  com- 
merce, and  the  surest  bond  of  national  concord  '. 

(5.)  "There  is  nothing."  So  we  sometimes  think 
as  we  look  on  the  barren  fields  of  theological  and 
metaphysical  controversy.  Nothing,  so  we  say,  can 
be  gleaned  from  the  thorny  speculations  with  which, 
on  this  spot,  the  most  famous  of  the  American 
divines  in  the  previous  age  laboured  to  build  up 
the  hard  system  of  Calvin;  yet  even  in  that  hard 
system   those  who  most  dissent  from  it  may  find 


"  THERE  IS  NOTHING? 


177 


grains  of  pure  gold;  even  from  the  most  rigid  state- 
ments of  Jonathan  Edwards,  our  modern  philoso- 
phers have  laboured  to  extract  a  religious  sanction 
for  the  belief  in  the  fixity  of  the  general  laws  of  the 
universe ;  even  in  the  most  unlovely  of  Christian 
theologians,  whether  in  Geneva  or  in  Massachusetts, 
there  is  still  something  to  invigorate  and  to  stimulate, 
when  we  reflect  that  they  were  striving  to  fortify  the 
eternal  principles  of  truth  and  righteousness  against 
the  temptations  which  beset  us  all.  There  is  such  a 
power  as  the  grace  of  God  working  on  the  human 
will,  if  only  it  be  understood  that  the  grace  of  God 
is  not  the  unreasoning  power  of  a  relentless  Fate, 
but  the  goodness  and  wisdom  of  the  Supreme 
Intelligence,  to  whom  nothing  is  so  precious  as 
virtue  and  purity,  nothing  so  hateful  as  vice  and 
corruption. 

(6.)  "There  is  nothing."  So  we  say  as  we  look 
upon  many  a  human  spirit,  and  think  how  little  there 
is  of  good  within  it,  how  hard  is  the  ground  that 
has  to  be  broken,  how  slight  the  response  that  is 
to  be  elicited.  So  may  well  have  thought  Nathan 
the  prophet  when  he  came  to  David.  What  was 
there  of  goodness  or  virtue  in  that  unhappy  soul  ? 
Treachery,    murder,    passion,    might    seem   to  have 


I78 


SERM  ONS. — STOCK  BRIDGE. 


closed  every  avenue  of  hope.  Yet  there  were  two 
approaches  to  that  seemingly  lost  soul.  One  was 
the  spark  of  generous  indignation  which  it  was  still 
possible  to  rouse  against  wrong  and  injustice  when 
he  heard  of  it  in  others.  David's  anger  was  greatly 
kindled,  and  he  said :  "  As  the  Lord  liveth,  the  rich 
man  that  hath  taken  the  little  ewe  lamb  shall  surely 
die,  because  he  had  no  pity."  It  was  on  this  just 
anger  against  others  that  the  Prophet  worked,  and 
turned  it  against  himself.  From  that  small  cloud 
came  abundance  of  rain.  The  fifty -first  Psalm,  the 
thirty-second  Psalm,  burst  from  the  soul  of  the  peni- 
tent king,  and  he  became  once  more  the  sweet 
Psalmist  of  Israel.  And  the  other  approach  was 
that  which  is  found  so  often  in  the  hardest  of  hearts. 
It  was  the  death  of  his  little  child — "  I  shall  go  to 
him,  but  he  will  not  return  to  me."  Deep  down  in 
the  human  soul  is  the  fountain  of  natural  affection, 
the  fountain  of  natural  tears.  Strike  that,'  and  we 
shall  not  strike  in  vain.  There  seems  to  be  nothing ; 
but  in  that  soft  place  in  a  fathers  heart,  there  is,  there 
may  be  everything.  So  it  is  that  lost  souls  are 
converted,  regenerated,  saved. 

(7.)  "  There  is  nothing."  So  we  think  of  the  small 
effects  which  any  effort   after  good  can  accomplish. 


v.]  "  THERE  IS  NOTHING"  179 

How  poor,  how  slight,  how  insignificant,  are  the  con- 
tributions of  compassion,  or  even  the  organisation  of 
great  societies,  to  lighten  the  vast  load  of  human 
misery,  or  relieve  one  inch  of  the  withering  drought 
of  suffering  humanity.  Yet  here  also  out  of  that 
nothingness  often  rises  that  little  cloud,  not  bigger 
than  a  man's  hand,  yet  the  very  hand  that  relieves 
us,  that  grasps  us,  that  saves  us  from  perishing.  Think 
not  lightly  of  any  effort  that  can  save  any  human 
being  from  misery  and  want.  Let  us  never  despair; 
let  us  have  patience.  A  word  of  compassion  goes  a 
long  way.  The  pressure  of  the  silent  hand  is  never 
forgotten.  Be  not  weary  in  well-doing.  Patience 
worketh  experience,  and  experience  hope. 

(8.)  "There  is  nothing."  So  may  have  thought  the 
Hebrew  race,  when  they  looked  over  the  wide  waste  of 
the  Western  Sea — as  Elijah's  boy  from  Mount  Carmel ; 
nothing  which  could  carry  on  the  true  religion,  if  any- 
thing cut  short  its  light  and  prospects  in  the  East. 
Yet  there  was  something  on  the  far  horizon  like  a 
cloud,  like  a  man's  hand.  It  was  the  only  island  of  the 
western  coasts  which  they  could  see.  It  was  the  island 
of  Chittim,  the  island  of  Cyprus,  now  become  familiar 
to  English  thought.  In  that  faint  outline  they  recog- 
nised the  hope   of  a  new  world.     It  was  as  when 

n  2 


1 80  SERMONS.— STOCKBRIDGE. 


[V. 


Columbus  in  the  drifting  seaweed  gathered  hopes  of 
discovering  a  new  continent,  it  was  a  shadow  of  future 
events,  a  foretaste  of  the  civilisation  of  Western 
Europe. 

(9.)  "There  is  nothing."  So  it  might  have  seemed, 
when  the  first  settlers  of  Massachusetts  established 
the  English  race  on  the  cheerless  shores,  the  barren 
rocks,  the  trackless  forests  of  this  continent.  Yet 
there  was  everything ;  there  was  the  hope  of  a  new 
world :  there  were  the  elements  of  a  mighty  nation, 
if  only  those  who  followed  after  sustained  the  high 
spirit  and  great  resolves  of  those  who  had  gone  before. 
It  was  but  two  days  ago  that  I  read  in  the  close  of 
a  volume  written  by  the  founder  of  the  venerable 
village  of  Concord,  a  sentence  which  ought  to  bring 
at  once  the  noblest  encouragement  and  the  sternest 
rebuke  to  every  citizen  of  this  commonwealth.  "There 
is  no  people,"  says  Peter  Bulkley  in  his  "  Gospel  Cove- 
nant," in  the  year  1646,  to  his  little  flock  of  exiles — 
"There  is  no  people  but  will  strive  to  excel  in  some- 
thing. What  can  we  excel  in  if  not  in  holiness?  If 
we  look  to  numbers,  we  are  the  fewest ;  if  to  strength, 
we  are  the  weakest ;  if  to  wealth  and  riches,  we  are 
the  poorest  of  all  the  people  of  God  throughout  the 
whole  world.    We  cannot  excel,  nor  so  much  as  equal, 


v.]  "THERE  IS  NOTHING."  181 

other  people  in  these  things  ;  and  if  we  come  short 
in  grace  and  holiness,  we  are  also  the  most  despicable 
people  under  heaven.  Strive  we  therefore  to  excel, 
and  suffer  not  this  crown  to  be  taken  away  from 
us." 

The  progress  is  indeed  marvellous  from  that  day  tc 
the  present,  when  that  poorest  and  fewest  and  weak- 
est of  the  nations,  that  little  cloud  not  bigger  than 
a  man's  hand,  has  taken  its  place  amongst  the  most 
vigorous  and  wealthy  and  powerful  of  mankind.  But 
the  moral  remains  the  same,  or  rather  is  strengthened. 
That  vast  development  has  shown  of  what  growth  the 
human  race  is  capable,  and  yet  how  entirely  that 
growth  depends  on  the  nobleness  of  character  and  force 
of  will  brought  to  bear  upon  its  natural  resources.  A 
little  one  has  become  a  thousand — not  because  of  its 
numbers,  not  because  of  its  wealth,  but  because  of  the 
high  destiny  which  God  has  assigned  to  it,  and  which 
it  must  accomplish  or  perish.  Had  the  forefathers  of 
this  mighty  nation  not  struggled  to  reclaim  the  wilder- 
ness, and  convert  the  savage,  and  build  up  the  Church 
of  God  by  river  and  by  forest — had  there  not  been  men 
like  the  gallant  soldiers  who  guarded  these  frontiers,  to 
catch,  in  the  intervals  of  war  and  bloodshed,  visions 
of  a  happy  and  peaceful   future,  and   to  lay  the 


1 82  SERMONS.— STOCKBRIDGE.  [v. 


foundations  on  which  learning  and  religion  might 
freely  nourish  and  abound— this  nation  would  never 
have  been  born,  this  empire  would  never  have  arisen. 

And  this  truth  is  but  the  likeness  of  all  human 
existence.  It  is  a  likeness  of  the  way  in  which  much 
grows  out  of  little.  It  is  a  warning  not  to  despise 
the  day  of  small  things.  "The  great  events  of 
history,"  says  an  acute  French  writer,  "like  the 
mysterious  personages  in  old  romances,  come  through 
a  door  in  the  wall  which  no  one  had  noticed." 
We  cannot  tell  what  immense  issues  may  depend  on 
our  public  and  our  private  duties. 

And  this  truth  is  the  more  necessary  and  the 
more  conspicuous  in  a  place  like  this,  withdrawn 
from  the  stir  of  the  great  world  amid  its  encircling 
hills.  Each  of  us  is  bound  to  make  the  small  circle 
in  which  he  lives  better  and  happier;  each  of  us  is 
bound  to  see  that  out  of  that  small  circle  the  widest 
good  may  flow  j  each  of  us  may  have  fixed  in  his 
mind  the  thought  that  out  of  a  single  household 
may  flow  influences  which  shall  stimulate  the  whole 
commonwealth  and  the  whole  civilised  world.  The 
long  life  of  a  venerable  pastor  or  a  good  layman 
spent  chiefly  in  preaching  the  Gospel  and  doing 
good,  though  it  seems  to  be  nothing  at  the  time, 


v.]  "  THERE  IS  NOTHING?  183 

yet  in  the  fragrance  which  it  leaves  behind  is  a 
memory  as  lasting  as  the  Pyramids. 

God  grant  that  as  our  horizon  of  duty  is  widened, 
our  minds  may  widen  with  it;  that  as  our  burden 
is  increased,  our  shoulders  may  be  strengthened  to 
bear  it  1  God  grant  to  us  that  spirit  of  wisdom  and 
understanding,  uprightness,  and  godly  fear,  without 
which,  even  in  the  greatest  things,  there  is  nothing; 
with  which,  even  in  the  smallest  things,  there  is 
everything  1 


VI. 


THE  UNITY  AND  DIVERSITY  OF 

CHRISTENDOM. 

PREACHED  IN  TRINITY  CHURCH,  NEW  YORK,  ON  ALL  SAINTS* 
DAY,  NOVEMBER  I,  1878. 

"Many  members  yet  but  one  body." — I  Cor.  xii.  2a 

In  this  the  mother  Church  of  the  English  settlers  of 
New  York,  and  on  this  day  of  the  communion  of  all 
the  saints  of  the  Universal  Church,  I  propose  to  ask 
what  are  the  different  parts  which  at  present  compose 
the  great  body  which  we  call  Christendom,  and  to 
see  what  is  the  use  to  which  these  different  parts 
have  ministered  and  may  minister. 

There  are  four  such  parts  or  members  outside  of 
ourselves  ;  if  we  add  ourselves  there  will  be  a  fifth. 
But  it  may  be  useful  for  once  to  look  out  of  our- 
selves at  the  other  four,  which  have  their  seats  chiefly 
in  foreign  countries.    These  are  the  Greek,  «r  Eastern 


vi.]  UNI  TY&DIl  'ERSIT  Y  OF  CHRIS  TEN  DOM.  1 8  5 


Church;  the  Latin,  or  Roman  Church;  the  Lutheran, 
or  German  Church  ;  the  Calvinist  and  Reformed 
CI  lurches. 

Of  each  of  these  we  might  ask,  and  truth  some- 
times calls  upon  us  to  ask,  What  evil  has  each  of 
these  Churches  done  ?  What  error  has  each  of  them 
added  to  the  world  ?  But  we  may  also  ask,  with 
equal  justice  and  with  more  charity:  What  good  has 
each  of  them  done?  What  truth  has  each  of  them 
set  forth?  What  error  has  each  of  them  served  to 
correct  ? 

We  know  how  in  a  family  we  sometimes  see  four 
brothers  or  cousins,  each  of  the  most  different  cha- 
racter from  the  other.  We  might  wish  sometimes  that 
they  were  all  exactly  alike,  but  God  has  made  them 
different;  and  it  is  their  very  difference  which  makes 
them  to  be  of  use  to  each  other.  One  of  them  is 
much  older  than  the  rest,  grave,  perhaps  stiff  and 
reserved,  unwilling  to  move ;  looking  at  the  more 
eager  sports  and  pursuits  of  the  younger  members 
of  the  family  calmly,  kindly,  forbearingly ;  not  adding 
much  to  their  amusement,  or  advancement,  or  instruc- 
tion; but  giving  them  from  time  to  time  a  word  of 
wise  counsel,  and  telling  them  of  the  manners  and 
customs  of  the  good  old  times,  which,  but  for  his 


SERMONS.  —NE  W  YORK. 


[VI. 


tenacious  memory  and  older  years,  would  be  quite 
forgotten.  That  is  the  position  of  the  ancient  Eastern 
or  Greek  Churches,  which  are  found  in  Asia,  Egypt, 
Greece,  and  Russia.  They  have  for  many  hundred 
years  done  but  little  for  the  knowledge  or  activity  of 
the  world.  But  they  represent,  more  than  any  other 
stt  of  Christians  now  existing,  the  usages  of  older 
days.  They  have  handed  down  to  us  creeds  and 
ancient  forms,  which  without  them  would  have  been 
lost.  They  look  upon  all  younger  Churches  more 
kindly  and  gently,  perhaps,  than  any  of  those  younger 
Churches  look  upon  them  and  on  each  other.  They 
are  quite  unlike  us.  We  never  could  adapt  ourselves 
to  their  religious  customs,  nor  they  to  ours.  But  for 
that  very  reason  we  can  regard  them  with  respectful 
gratitude,  and  the  very  remoteness  of  their  position 
and  their  manners  from  us  makes  us  feel  more  forcibly 
the  examples  of  Christian  wisdom  and  Christian  faith 
which  we  may  find  amongst  them.  Such  was  the 
answer  of  the  Eastern  Patriarchs  in  a  letter  sent  to 
the  Pope  of  Rome :  "  Let  us  love  one  another  in 
order  that  we  may  be  able  with  one  accord  to  worship 
God."  Such  was  the  letter  of  the  Patriarch  of  Con- 
stantinople a  few  years  later  :  "  Let  us  approach  the 
subject    which    you    bring  before    us    by  historical 


VI.]  UNITY &>  DIVERSITY  OF  CHRISTENDOM.  187 


methods."  Such,  in'  the  great  empire  of  Russia,  was 
the  good  old  Archbishop  of  Moscow,  who  died  some 
few  years  ago.  Such  was  the  character  of  the  Russian 
Admiral  Komileff,  who  fell  in  the  siege  of  Sebastopol. 
We  see  in  all  these,  features  of  the  same  Christian 
family  as  ourselves,  yet  with  a  peculiar  primitive  ex- 
pression, a  quiet  strength,  which  we  could  hardly 
have  found  outside  of  those  old  Churches.  That  is 
the  eldest  brother  of  our  household. 

Then,  again,  it  often  happens  that  wo  see  in  the 
family  another  brother  full  of  art,  of  imagination,  full 
also  of  practical  energy,  wishing  to  have  everything  his 
own  way,  yet  giving  a  new  force  and  a  new  grace 
to  everything  about  him.  Such  a  member  of  the 
Christian  family  was  born  in  the  Latin  Western  Church, 
which,  by  that  name,  is  now  to  be  found  chiefly  in  the 
countries  of  Italy,  France,  and  Spain— of  which  the 
finest  fruits  were  seen  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth 
centuries,  and  from  which  the  Protestant  Churches  are 
descended,  and  derive  some  of  their  peculiar  qualities. 
There  is,  no  doubt,  much  evil  that  the  Latin  Church 
has  done,  both  in  former  and  in  present  times.  In 
these  later  days  it  has  lost  many  of  the  graces  which 
adorned  it  in  the  Middle  Ages.  But,  as  I  have  said, 
we  have  to  ask :   What  good  has  it  done  ?  What 


188  SERMONS.— NEW  YORK.  [vi. 

is  there  which  we  have  gained  from  it  which  has  not 
been  equally  produced  by  any  other?  Two  points 
I  will  especially  name.  The  first  is  the  cultivation  of 
art  and  of  beauty  in  religion.  There  is  not  one  of  us 
who  may  not  be  the  better  for  the  contemplation  of 
the  splendid  ancient  churches,  and  the  lovely  ancient 
pictures,  which  have  been  handed  down  to  us  from  the 
days  of  the  Mediaeval  Church.  They  are  its  bequest 
to  the  family  treasures  of  Christendom ;  we  may  enjoy 
them  and  be  grateful  for  them  without  scruple.  The 
second  is  the  gift  of  self-denying  and  devoted  benefi- 
cence, which  they  have  shown  at  different  times  of 
their  existence.  The  Sisters  of  Mercy,  the  Sisters  of 
Charity  in  their  great  hospitals,  the  inexhaustible  labours 
of  many  of  their  missionaries,  both  in  the  Old  and 
in  the  New  World,  are  examples  to  all  Christians  every- 
where. These,  amidst  whatever  faults— and  they  had 
many — have  left  models  from  which  every  Christian 
Church  may  learn  something,  and  by  which  all  our 
Christian  experience  has  become  richer.  Of  the  Latin 
Church,  as  of  its  chief  modern  representatives  the 
Jesuits,  may  be  said:  "  Ubi  male  nemo  pejus;  ubi  bene 
nemo  melius."  "Where  they  have  done  ill,  nothing 
can  be  worse ;  where  they  have  done  well,  nothing 
can  be  better." 


VI.]  UNITY  &  DIVERSITY  OF  CHRISTENDOM.  189 


There  is  another  brother  of  the  same  household, 
another  member  of  the  same  body.  This,  too,  we  have 
sometimes  seen  in  individual  life  :  Some  younger  son  of 
the  family,  with  as  much  faith  and  energy  as  the  others, 
but  full  of  burning  indignation  against  wrong,  full  of 
ardent  desire  for  knowledge  and  instruction,  impatient 
of  any  authority,  with  a  heart  full  of  genial  sympathy 
for  all  that  is  new  and  true  everywhere.  His  likeness 
too  is  to  be  found  in  the  great  household  of  Christen- 
dom. We  may  almost  think  that  we  have  seen  him 
in  bodily  shape.  His  name  there  is  Martin  Luther. 
He  is  the  father  of  the  Protestant  Churches,  but  espe- 
cially of  the  Churches  of  Germany.  On  All  Saints' 
Eve,  he  made  his  first  stand  in  that  famous  scene 
which  on  this  day  is  celebrated  by  all  the  children 
of  the  Reformation  in  the  European  Continent. 
Against  him  too,  and  against  the  Churches  which  he 
founded,  we  might  have  many  reproaches  to  bring. 
But  here  again  let  us  ask  only :  What  good  he  has 
given  to  us  and  to  the  whole  family  ?  What  bless- 
ings have  we  gained  from  the  Church  of  Germany  as 
from  none  besides  ?  It  is  the  conscientious,  inde- 
fatigable love  and  search  for  truth,  especially  of  truth 
in  things  Divine  and  sacred.  No  other  Church  or 
nation  has  done  so  much  to  explain,  and  examine, 


SERMONS.— NEW  YORK. 


[VI. 


and  prove  on  every  side  the  text,  letter,  sense, 
and  spirit  of  the  Bible.  Through  Luther,  the  Bible 
was  first  fully  brought  before  the  whole  mind  and 
heart  of  Europe;  and  through  Luther's  successors,  by 
many  an  effort,  sometimes  successful,  sometimes  un- 
successful, but  almost  always  with  a  sincere  desire  to 
find  out  the  truth,  the  Word  of  God — that  is,  the  Truth 
— has  been  set  forth,  and  discussed,  and  searched  down 
to  the  very  dividing  of  its  joints  and  marrow,  of  its 
soul  and  spirit.  This  duty  of  unceasing,  unswerving 
resolution  to  "  prove  all  things,  and  hold  fast  that 
which  is  good,"  is  what  we  all,  even  the  humblest 
amongst  us,  have  gained  from  Luther  and  from  Ger- 
many. It  was  well  said  by  a  young  English  student, 
who  was  once  asked  what  was  the  evil  and  what  the 
good  which  Luther  had  contributed  to  the  movement 
of  the  Reformation  :  "  He  found  a  united  Church,  he 
left  a  divided  Church  :  he  found  a  dead  Church,  he 
left  a  living  Church." 

One  other  branch  of  the  family  still  remains.  Thus 
we  may  have  known  in  some  private  household,  besides 
the  grave  elder  brother,  besides  the  imaginative  and 
devoted  younger  brother,  besides  the  genial,  energetic, 
inquiring  boy  who  is  always  pushing  forwnrd  in  the 
race  and  school  of  life,  there  is  also  the  stubborn, 


vi.]  UNITY  &*  DIVERSITY  OF  CHRISTENDOM.  191 


unyielding,  conscientious  youth,  who  will  not  give  way 
for  a  single  moment  on  any  point,  however  small, 
that  seems  to  him  to  be  right ;  but  who  thus  prevents 
any  of  the  others  from  lording  it  too  exclusively  over 
their  brothers  and  sisters.  Here  we  come  to  those 
other  children  of  the  Reformation  akin  to  Luther, 
yet  not  exactly  the  same,  who  were  nursed,  not  on 
the  Elbe  or  the  Rhine,  but  under  the  snow-clad 
Alpine  heights  at  Geneva  and  Zurich — the  severe 
austerity  of  Calvin,  the  boundless  freedom  of  Zwinglius. 
These  are  the  fathers  of  the  Reformed  Churches  of 
Switzerland,  of  Holland,  of  France,  and  of  Scotland. 
These  have  furnished  to  Christendom  the  sternness, 
and  the  soberness,  and  also  the  martyr  zeal  which  has 
defended  the  rights  of  conscience,  and  the  liberty  of 
the  individual  soul,  against  oppression  and  against 
tyranny  everywhere.  Here,  too,  has  been  nursed  the 
clear  intrepid  logical  argument  which  will  be  satisfied 
with  nothing  else  but  demonstration  and  proof,  even 
in  the  most  sacred  things.  Against  these  also  we  may 
complain  that  often  by  them  evil  has  been  repaid 
with  evil,  and  railing  with  railing,  and  that  they  who 
defied  the  sword  of  others  smote  with  the  sword 
themselves.  Yet  not  the  less  is  the  good  which  they 
bequeathed  to  the  Church  a  good  and  perfect  gift 


I  92 


SERMONS.— NEW  YORK. 


[VI. 


coming  down  from  the  Father  of  Lights — the  gift  of  a 
resolute,  independent  conscience,  which  regards  every- 
thing else  as  mere  vanity  and  frivolity. 

Thus,  briefly,  I  have  passed  through  the  body  of 
Christendom,  through  the  family  of  the  Christian 
household.  If  any  religious  community  is  capable  of 
understanding  this  unity  in  diversity,  it  ought  to  be 
that  which  belongs  to  the  English-speaking  race.  Our 
own  Church  of  England  has,  as  has  been  often  ob- 
served, this  peculiar  advantage,  that  it  touches  with  one 
hand  the  immovable  Churches  of  the  East,  and  with  the 
other  the  changing  Churches  of  the  West.  We  may 
add  that  it  has  also  this  advantage,  that,  being  connected 
through  its  ancestral  observances  with  the  historical 
Churches  of  former  times,  it  yet  includes  within  itself 
those  elements  of  independence  and  free  thought 
which  have  burst  from  its  borders  both  in  England 
and  in  America.  And,  further,  by  reason  of  its  com- 
prehensiveness, it  contains,  or  ought  to  contain,  those 
qualities  which  have  from  time  to  time  belonged  to  all 
the  other  branches  of  Christendom.  The  boldness  of 
Latimer,  the  wisdom  of  Cranmer,  the  magnanimity 
of  Falkland,  the  philosophic  dignity  of  Hooker  and 
Butler,  the  ideal  aspirations  of  Berkeley,  the  critical 
and  artistic  mind  of  Coleridge,  the  poetic  genius  of 


VI.]  UNITY  &  DIVERSITY  OF  CHRISTENDOM.  193 


Bunyan  and  Herbert,  the  sound  common  sense  of  Paley. 
the  indefatigable  zeal  of  Wesley,  the  comprehensive 
benevolence  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  and  Tillotson,  and 
Channing,  these  belong  to  the  Church  of  England 
and  its  children  in  all  their  several  branches.  These 
ought  to  enable  us  to  enter  into  all  the  varieties  of  the 
Christian  household,  because  these  are  characteristics 
which  may  be  found  in  all.  The  same  bright  smile, 
the  same  open  brow,  the  same  ready  tongue,  may  be 
found  in  brothers  who  in  all  other  respects  are  divided 
by  such  marks  as  we  have  named. 

And  now  let  me  briefly  sum  up  the  advantages  of 
such  a  brief  survey  as  we  have  traversed. 

(1.)  It  is  good  for  us  for  a  moment  to  look  out  of 
ourselves,  and  to  be  taught  that  we  are  not  the  whole 
world,  or  the  whole  Church.  Great  as  is  the  Church 
of  England,  great  in  itself,  and  in  its  daughter  Churches, 
great  as  is  the  English  nation  and  its  mighty  children 
of  the  United  States  of  America,  yet  they  are  not  all. 
We  cannot  safely  dismiss  or  reject  the  other  members 
of  the  family,  as  if  we  had  no  concern  with  them.  We 
have  doubtless  done  something  for  them,  but  they 
each  of  them  in  their  day  have  also  done  something 
for  us. 

(2.)  It  is  useful  to  see  how  by  such  different  gifts 

o 


194 


SERMONS.— NEW  YORK. 


and  graces,  as  well  in  nature  as  in  the  Church,  God's 
work  is  carried  on.  It  is  a  part  of  that  machinery  by 
which  the  whole,  system  of  the  world  in  which  we  live 
is  so  fearfully  and  wonderfully  made.  Each  part  locks 
into  each.  We  cannot  safely  dispense  even  with  the 
Churches  which  we  may  most  dislike,  and  which  in 
other  respects  may  have  wrought  much  evil.  "  God  hath 
tempered  the  body  together,  having  given  more  abundant 
honour  to  that  part  which  lacked,  that  there  should 
be  no  division  in  the  body.  If  the  whole  body  were 
an  eye,  where  were  the  hearing?  If  the  whole  body- 
were  a  hearing,  where  were  the  smelling?"  If  Chris- 
tendom were  all  Eastern  or  Greek,  where  were  the  action 
and  energy  of  the  West  ?  If  Christendom  were  all 
Roman,  where  were  the  independent  research  and 
independent  conscience  of  the  Protestant?  If  Chris- 
tendom were  all  Lutheran  or  all  Calvinist,  where  would 
be  the  beautiful  imagination  of  the  South,  or  the 
grave  repose  of  the  East,  or  the  savour  and  fragrance 
of  ancient  days  and  departed  greatness?  If  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race  and  the  Anglo-Saxon  Churches, 
with  all  their  splendid  qualities,  were  the  sole  pos- 
sessors of  the  earth,  we  should  run  the  risk  of  de- 
generating into  overweening  presumptuous  Philistines. 
If  we  are  to  Jose  "  the  sweetness  and  the  light "  wnich 


vj.]  UNITY  &>  DIVERSITY  OF  CHRISTENDOM  195 

breathes  and  shines  through  all  the  Churches  together 
in  the  hearts  and  minds  of  their  most  distinguished 
members,  where  would  be  the  catholicity  which  is,  or 
ought  to  be,  the  mark  of  the  Holy  Church  Universal  ? 
But  knowing  beforehand  what  is  good  in  each,  we 
shall  not  be  thrown  off  our  balance  by  suddenly  dis- 
covering it,  as  if  it  were  some  new  and  strange  thing. 
By  seeing  that  each  has  something  which  the  other 
has  not,  we  shall  recognise  the  human,  imperfect, 
mixed  character  of  each,  and  counterbalance  one  good 
gift  by  another.  This  is  the  true  Christian  wisdom 
of  common  life;  it  is  no  less  the  Christian  wisdom 
of  ecclesiastical  life ;  it  is  no  less  the  religion  of  little 
children. 

(3.)  It  is  a  lesson  to  us  to  look,  not  only  for  the 
evil,  but  also  for  the  good  of  the  world  in  which  we 
live.  Truth  compels  us  to  be  aware  of  the  faults  of 
others.  This  we  cannot,  and  ought  not  to  conceal. 
But  charity  no  less  than  truth  compels  us  to  look, 
at  least  from  time  to  time,  on  the  other  side.  "  Can 
there  come  any  good  thing  out  of  Nazareth?"  was 
the  question  of  the  natural,  unregenerate,  uncivilised, 
unsanctified  heart.  "Can  there  come  any  good  thing 
out  of  Greece,  out  of  Rome,  out  of  Germany,  out  of 
Geneva?"    "Can  there  come  any  good  thing  out  of 

o  2 


196 


SERMONS.  —NE  W  YORK. 


[VI. 


England  ? "  has  sometimes  been  said  in  America. 
"  Can  there  come  any  good  thing  out  of  America  ? " 
has  sometimes  been  said  in  England.  This  is  a 
question  which  has  been  repeated  and  reverberated 
a  thousand  times,  and  the  answer  is  :  "  There  may 
be  much  good."  There  was  much  evil  in  Nazareth, 
but  there  was  also  in  it  the  greatest  of  all  good. 
There  may  be,  there  is,  much  of  evil  in  each  of  those 
Churches  that  we  have  named,  but  there  has  been, 
and  there  is  now,  and  there  yet  may  be  much  good. 
God's  providence  is  greater  than  our  divisions;  God's 
arrangements  are  wiser  than  our  confusions ;  Paul  and 
Cephas  had  each  their  own  peculiar  gifts,  but  they 
were  all  Christ's,  and  Christ  is  God's. 

(4.)  And  finally,  if  there  be  a  call  upon  us  to  look  in 
this  spirit  on  the  Churches  of  other  lands  and  other 
races,  much  more  is  there  a  call  for  all  the  various  com- 
munions of  the  English  race  to  do  so,  whether  here  or 
beyond  the  ocean,  who  are  bone  of  our  bone,  and 
flesh  of  our  flesh,  and  blood  of  our  blood.  When 
your  Puritan  founders  felt  themselves  compelled  to 
leave  their  native  shores,  they  did  not  lose  their 
affection  for  their  own  mother  Church  and  country. 
"Farewell,"  they  said,  "dear  England — not  Babylon, 
but   England.      Farewell,  dear   Church   of  England. 


vi.]  UNITY  &>  DIVERSITY  OF  CHRISTENDOM.  197 


We  wish  not  to  separate  from  it,  but  to  reform  its 
practice  and  to  propagate  the  Gospel."  When  the 
division  was  effected  between  the  American  Colonies 
and  the  parent  State,  when  misunderstanding  and  war 
and  recrimination  had  widened  the  alienation  to  the 
utmost  pitch,  when  throne  and  Church  and  the  very 
name  of  England  were  thrust  aside  with  fierce  indigna- 
tion, even  then  your  forefathers  in  this  city  spared  this 
venerable  Church  with  its  vast  endowments,  now  so 
nobly  used,  to  remain  as  a  monument  of  American 
moderation,  to  which  a  high-minded  English  statesman 
of  our  own  day  has  been  enabled  to  appeal,  in  the  hope 
of  restraining  the  destructive  rage  of  political  partisan- 
ship and  ecclesiastical  fanaticism  on  our  own  shores. 
May  this  be  the  generous  spirit  in  which,  here  and 
elsewhere,  the  various  communions  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race  may  regard  the  ancient  Church  of  England  with 
its  more  special  representatives  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic;  that  ancient  Church  which  with  all  its  short- 
comings has  been  bound  up  with  the  very  vitals  of 
the  English  Commonwealth,  with  the  very  fibre  of 
English  History,  with  the  best  issues  of  the  English 
Reformation,  and  which,  in  its  majestic  forms,  in  its 
sober  and  refined  character,  still  furnishes  a  model 
even  for  those  who   have  parted  from  it.     And  to 


198  SERMONS.— NEW  YORK.  [vi. 

those  who  have  so  parted,  may  not  we  also  in  like 
manner  turn  in  the  same  spirit?  If  there  be  any  such 
present  here,  to  them  let  the  same  principle  be 
addressed,  as  children  of  the  same  parentage,  and 
members,  though  divided,  of  the  same  body.  I  do 
not  name  their  names,  but  one  by  one  they  pass 
before  the  mind,  as  we  touch  not  on  their  defects  or 
excesses,  but  on  their  gifts  and  on  their  graces.  Even 
in  these  gifts  and  graces  there  is  much  which  we 
cannot  copy,  but  amidst  them  all  there  is  always  that 
more  excellent  way  of  love  to  God  and  man,  without 
which  every  gift  and  grace  comes  to  nothing.  You 
who  have  reached,  as  we  find  it  hard  to  reach,  the 
rude  and  ignorant  classes  of  the  simple  negro  in  the 
South,  the  rough  settler  and  the  wild  miner  in  the 
West;  you  who  have  unfurled  before  the  eyes  of 
Christendom  with  unshaken  confidence  the  flag,  not 
of  war,  but  of  peace  j  you  who  have  retained  in  its 
strange  simplicity  the  primitive  Oriental  sacramental 
form  which  all  other  Western  Churches  have  aban- 
doned; you  who  amidst  the  difficulties  of  a  new  world 
preserved  the  more  systematic  study  of  the  old 
theology  of  Europe ;  you  who  first  endeavoured  to 
civilise  and  Christianise  the  Indians  of  this  continent, 
and  who  first  revived  in  America  the  spirit  of  mis- 


vi.]  UNITY  &>  DIVERSITY  OF  CHRISTENDOM.  199 


sionary  enterprise  in  foreign  parts ;  you  who  have 
recalled  the  Christian  world  to  a  larger  view  of  the 
Divine  love,  to  a  nobler  view  of  human  nature,  and 
to  a  profounder  study  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  ;  to  one 
and  all  of  you,  however  much  differing  from  us,  and 
we  however  much  differing  from  you,  is  owed  a  debt 
of  gratitude  for  doing  what  we,  perchance,  had  not 
done,  and  could  not  do.  Be  it  ours  and  yours  alike 
to  acknowledge  this  mutual  debt  freely  and  fully.  In 
this  multiplication — perhaps  excessive  multiplication — 
of  Churches  and  communions,  be  it  the  effort  of 
every  Church  and  every  communion  not  to  spend  the 
precious  time  that  remains  in  needless  recrimination 
or  proselytism.  Let  us  not  build  on  other  men's 
labours ;  let  there  be  a  just  division  of  labour ;  let 
each  endeavour  not  to  supersede  but  to  supplement 
the  other ;  let  each  strive  and  pray  that  as  we  are 
knit  together  in  one  communion  and  fellowship  in  the 
body  of  Christ  our  Lord,  so  we  may  all  help  each 
other  in  all  virtuous  and  godly  living,  till  we  come  to 
those  unspeakable  joys  which  God  has  prepared  for 
those  who,  of  whatever  race  or  creed,  unftignedly 
love  Him  who  is  Perfect  Goodness  and  Perfect 
Truth. 


VII. 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN  * 

PREACHED  IN  GRACE  CHURCH,  NEW  YORK,   SUNDAY  MORNING, 
NOVEMBER  3,  1878. 

"What  is  thy  name?" — Genesis  xxxii.  27. 

This  is  the  last  day  on  which  I  shall  have  the  oppor- 
tunity of  speaking  from  the  pulpit  in  this  country  on 
the  great  questions  which  concern  us  all.  I  have 
chosen  for  my  subject  the  story  of  the  mysterious 
conflict  of  Jacob  and  the  unknown  traveller  on  the 
heights  of  Peniel.  Divested  of  its  outward  imagery, 
it  represents  the  twofold  problem  which  lies  at  the 
basis  of  all  religion :  "  What  is  man,  and  what  is 
God?  It  is  the  object  of  this  discourse  to  ask  what  the 
highest  utterances  of  the  Bible,  in  common  with  our 
own  best  experiences,  teach  us  of  the  nature  of  man. 
The  question  of  the  Divine  to  the  human  being — 

*  In  this  and  the  following  sermon  '.here  are  a  few  passages 
which  were  omitted  in  the  delivery. 


VII.] 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN 


20i 


"What  is  thy  name?"  this  is  the  question  which  I 
propose  to  consider  on  the  present  occasion ;  the 
same  question  which  the  Psalmist  proposed,  when,  after 
contemplating  the  wonders  of  the  world  of  nature,  he 
turned  round  upon  himself  and  asked,  "  What  is 
man  ? "  It  is  the  question  which  has  risen  from 
time  to  time  in  the  heart  of  every  thoughtful  seeker — 
as  life  opens  on  our  view,  or  as  the  shadows  of  sorrow 
and  death  close  round  us — as  when  the  great  states- 
man of  Holland  laid  his  head  on  the  block,  and  with 
his  last  voice  exclaimed:  "O  God,  what  is  man?"  It 
is  the  unquenchable  desire  to  have  in  our  minds 
some  knowledge  of  the  origin,  the  destiny,  the  nature 
of  that  being, 

Darkly  wise  and  rudely  great, 

Placed  on  the  isthmus  of  a  middle  state. 

Nothing  could  be  more  alien  from  the  intention 
of  him  who  addresses  you  than  to  attempt  to  examine 
on  this  occasion  scientifically  and  philosophically  the 
thousand  branches  of  speculation  which  this  question 
involves.  My  object  here  is  far  humbler,  but  yet 
not,  I  trust,  altogether  unworthy  of  so  great  a  theme. 
It  is,  as  I  have  said,  to  state  the  broad  outlines,  the 
general  spirit  of  the  Biblical  theology  on  this  subject, 


202 


SERMONS.— NEW  YORK. 


[VH. 


and  to  draw  out  from  it  those  elements  of  thought 
which,  as  they  are  not  in  opposition  to  any  modern 
theory  concerning  man,  cannot  be  thereby  destroyed 
or  set  aside. 

(i.)  In  regard  to  the  outward  frame  of  man,  what 
is  the  teaching  of  the  Bible,  whether  in  the  dim 
visions  of  the  primeval  records  of  the  Book  of  Genesis, 
or  in  the  more  direct  teaching  of  the  iVew  Testament? 
I  need  hardly  say  that,  in  thus  approaching  the  in- 
quiry, we  are  not  to  be  possessed  with  the  desire — 
alike  false  to  philosophy  and  to  the  true  nature  of 
the  Bible  —  with  the  desire  of  finding  systems  of 
anatomy  or  of  physiology  in  the  Hebrew  or  Greek 
Scriptures.  To  all  such  expectations  the  best  answer 
is  the  fine  application  by  Lord  Bacon  of  the  angelic 
question  at  the  Holy  Sepulchre  :  "  Why  seek  ye  the 
living  amongst  the  dead?"  "Why  seek  ye  the  dead 
amongst  the  living?"  The  spheres  are  different,  the 
language  is  different.  The  skeleton  of  science  is  not 
to  be  found  in  the  smiles  and  the  tears  of  the  Biblical 
appeals  to  our  conscience  and  affections.  But  making 
all  allowance  for  this,  treating  the  sacred  books  as 
they  claim  on  their  face  to  be  treated,  as  popular, 
inartificial,  poetical,  passionate,  practical  records ;  seek- 
ing in   the   sacred   history  not  a  subtle  analysis  of 


VII.] 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN 


2°3 


mental  phenomena,  but  such  an  obvious  exempli- 
fication of  these  truths  as  suffices  to  illus'rate  and 
confirm  them ;  there  are  elements  of  tboi  c;ht,  of 
imagery,  of  suggestive  indications,  which  the  philo- 
sopher need  not  despise,  and  which  the  religious  man 
may  gladly  use,  if  for  no  other  purpose,  yet  at  least  as 
stepping-stones  which  will  not  fail  us  in  passing  from 
one  sphere  to  another.  When  we  hear  on  every  side 
of  the  inquiries  concerning  that  mysterious  frame 
which  has  been  so  fearfully  and  wonderfully  made, 
let  us  not  be  alarmed  as  though  some  new  thing  had 
happened  to  us.  However  far  we  may  trace  back  the 
material  parts  of  man,  from  whatever  earlier  forms  of 
existence  it  may  be  thought  possible  to  derive  the 
bodily  frame  which  we  possess  in  common  with  other 
parts  of  the  creation,  no  one  can  go  farther  back  or 
deeper  down  than  St.  Paul  or  than  the  Book  of 
Genesis  have  already  led  us.  "  The  first  man  is  of 
the  earth,  earthy,"  says  St.  Paul ;  "  the  Lord  God," 
says  the  Book  of  Genesis,  "made  man  out  of  the  dust 
of  the  earth,"  out  of  the  inanimate  brute  earth.  There 
is  much,  no  doubt,  that  has  of  late  years  brought 
out  the  likeness  of  our  physical  nature  to  that  of  the 
•  lower  animals,  with  a  force,  and  vivacity,  and  mul- 
tiplicity of  illustration   that  was   not  known  before. 


204  SERMONS.— NEW  YORK.  [vn. 

But  the  fact  itself  has  always  been  familiar  even  to 
the  ordinary  observer.  There  is  much  also  that  has 
long  ago  compelled  us  to  abandon  the  prosaic  chro- 
nological character  of  the  earlier  chapters  of  the  Bible. 
But  this  need  not  preclude  us  from  recognising  the 
truth  of  their  general  spirit,  of  their  spiritual  forecast. 
The  Biblical  and  the  scientific  accounts  thus  far 
at  least  go  together — that  neither  in  the  one  nor  the 
other  can  the  description  of  man's,  origin  affect  or 
destroy  our  knowledge,  our  certainty  of  what  he  is 
now.  There  is  nothing  more  surprising  in  being  told 
that  the  race  of  mankind  has  sprung,  as  the  Bible 
tells  us,  from  the  dust  of  the  earth,  than  in  being  told 
that  a  Newton  or  a  Shakespeare  has  sprung  from  the 
small  sleeping  infant,  without  speech,  without  reason, 
almost  without  consciousness.  It  would  be  new,  it 
would  be  against  religion,  it  would  be  against  the 
Bible,  it  would,  I  may  add,  be  against  all  fact  and 
all  experience,  if  we  were  told  that  because  of  this 
humble  origin,  if  so  it  be,  therefore  we  could  never 
rise  above  it ;  that  because  we  were  once  children, 
therefore  we  must  be  for  ever  children  and  can  never 
become  men;  that  because  we  were  once  savage,  we 
could  never  be  civilised ;  that  because  our  first  man 
was  of  the  earth,  earthy,  therefore  all  our  higher  and 


VII.] 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN. 


205 


nobler  desires,  and  hopes  and  affections,  are  also  of 
the  earth,  earthy.  This  would  indeed  make  us,  as 
St.  Paul  says,  of  all  creatures  the  most  miserable.  But 
any  such  degrading,  retrograde  belief  is  repudiated  by 
none  more  than  by  the  chief  of  our  philosophic  inquirers. 
They,  as  well  as  the  most  devout  theologian,  maintain 
that  the  destiny,  the  vocation  of  man  is  not  to  be  sta- 
tionary, but  progressive ;  that  nothing  in  the  whole 
world  is  50  excellent  and  enduring  as  that  which  has 
been  done  by  the  heroic,  or  generous,  or  truthful 
amongst  the  sons  of  men ;  that  "  to  all  eternity  the 
sum  of  truth  and  right  will  have  been  increased  by 
their  means  ;  that  to  all  eternity  falsehood  and  injus- 
tice will  be  the  weaker  because  such  deeds  have  been 
done."  Why  should  we  insist  on  making  such  inquirers 
worse  than  they  are?  Why  should  we  drive  into  the 
Devil's  camp  those  who  are  eager  to  be  ranked  with 
the  servants  of  the  Supreme  Good  and  the  worshippers 
of  the  Eternal  Truth  ?  If  it  be  an  inconsistency,  it  is  an 
inconsistency  to  which  they  themselves  plead  guilty, 
and  of  which  we  should  too  gladly  avail  ourselves ;  if 
they  pander  to  the  baser,  viler,  falser  parts  of  human 
nature,  they  have  themselves  fallen  below  the  higher, 
healthier,  nobler  thoughts  on  which  they  have  proudly 
insisted. 


2o6 


SERMONS.— NEW  YORK. 


[vn 


When,  therefore,  we  are  asked,  "  What  is  thy 
name?"  we  may  without  misgiving  reply  fearlessly  that 
we  are  not  ashamed  of  our  lineage  or  our  destiny. 
The  name  of  "  Adam,"  and  homo,  and  huniamis, 
all  alike  mean  "  the  child  of  the  ground."  But  there 
are  far  other  and  higher  names- — or  if  not  names, 
at  least  descriptions — in  store  for  him  ;  and  to  arrive 
at  these  we  must  ask  not  only  what  is  our  bodily  struc- 
ture, but  what  is  our  inmost  self?  Man  looks  upwards, 
not  downwards  —  forwards,  not  backwards  ;  and  it  is 
the  direction  in  which  he  looks,  far  more  than  the  actual 
look  itself,  which  indicates  what  he  is.  It  is  not  the 
descent,  but  the  ascent  of  man  which  reveals  his  true 
nature.  As  the  Christian  poet,  George  Herbert,  sang, 
with  an  insight  beyond  his  age: 

All  things  unto  our  flesh  are  kind 

In  their  descent  and  being — to  our  mind 

In  their  ascent  and  cause. 

"  Do  what  you  like,"  said  the  ancient  philosopher  (and 
surely  the  modern  philosopher  would  say  no  less), 
"  do  what  you  like  with  my  body  :  my  body  is  not 
me." 

(2.)  This  brings  us  to  the  second  part  of  the 
Biblical    account   of    man — to   that   division  which, 


vii.]  THE  NATURE  OF  MAN.  207 

whether  scientific  or  unscientific,  has  its  response  in  all 
human  language.  The  self  of  a  man  is  that  which  the 
Bible,  in  the  largest  sense,  calls  his  soul—  the  seat  of 
all  those  intellectual  and  moral  faculties  which  lie  behind 
the  outward  frame,  which  even  when  we  look  at  the 
face  of  a  living  friend  we  do  not  see— which  when  we 
look  at  the  face  of  a  dead  friend  we  know  are  no  longer 
there.  This  is  the  widest  sense  of  the  word  "  soul,"  or 
"self."  But  both  the  Bible  and  common  experience 
make  a  distinction  here  also  between  the  lower  and 
the  higher.  The  Apostle  says,  in  that  great  chapter 
where  he  discusses  the  hope  of  immortality— "  the  first 
man  was  made  a  living,  natural  soul."  The  natural  man 
— the  natural  genius,  the  natural  intellect,  the  natural 
play  of  mind,  the  natural  vigour— this  is  no  doubt  a 
vast  element  in  the  human  being. 

But  still  we  all  feel  that  these  are  not  the  qualities 
which  most  endear,  most  attract,  most  elevate.  There 
is  something  yet  beyond ;  and  that  is  what  the  Apostle 
calls  the  spirit — the  quickening,  life-giving  spirit.  There 
is  an  earthy  man  and  a  natural  man ;  but  there  is  above 
all  a  "spiritual"  man.  As  we  have  borne  in  our  outward 
frame  the  image  of  the  earthy,  which  we  share  in  common 
with  the  animal  creation;  as  we  have  a  living  soul,  a 
natural  soul,  which  we  share  in  common  with  all,  even 


208  SERMONS.— NEW  YORK.  [vn. 

the  most  degraded  of  men  j  so  in  our  innermost  being 
we  bear  the  image  of  the  heavenly,  which  we  share  in 
common  with  God  Himself.  If  the  soul  is,  in  the  Teu- 
tonic languages,*  the  "  sea,"  the  vast  illimitable  ocean  of 
the  human  being,  on  which  "the  wind,"  "the  breath," 
plays,  it  is  the  breath,  the  wind  itself,  which  is  the  life  of 
that  troubled  sea.  That  is  "  the  spirit,"  that  is  the  man 
himself;  that  is  the  essence  of  our  nature,  which  is  made 
in  the  image  of  God.  And  if  we  ask,  what  is  this 
spiritual  part  ?  we  must  reply,  It  is  the  affections ;  it 
is  the  generosity  which  embraces  the  needs  of  others 
besides  ourselves ;  it  is  the  conscience,  which  is  the 
ruling  faculty  within  us;  it  is  the  faith  which  removes 
mountains ;  it  is  the  hope  which  looks  beyond  the  grave  ; 
it  is,  above  all,  the  love,  the  charity,  which  never  fails 
— which  is  at  once  the  homeliest  and  the  loftiest  of  the 
virtues  of  humanity  and  of  the  attributes  of  Divinity. 
He  who  cultivates  this  part  of  his  existence— who 
makes  the  two  other  parts,  of  the  body  and  the 
soul  or  mind,  subordinate  to  this  one  supreme  part — 
he  is  a  spiritual  man.  He  in  whom  this  spiritual 
part  lives  and  burns  has  a  pledge  of  immortality. 
And  what  is  impressed  upon  us  by  the  history  of 

*  Professor  Max  Muller's  "Lectures  on  the  Science  of  Lan- 
guage," pp.  437-455- 


VII.] 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN 


209 


our  race  is  that  this  spiritual  part  of  man's  nature 
has,  on  the  whole,  most  constantly  advanced.  The 
first  man,  which  was  of  the  earth,  earthy — the  outward, 
physical  man — has,  on  the  whole,  remained  the  same. 
The  intellectual  part  has  advanced  immensely ;  the 
civilised  man  is  far  above  the  savage  —  the  Greek 
and  the  Roman  far  above  the  Asiatic.  But  the 
spiritual  man  —  the  soul  of  the  affections — whilst  on 
the  one  hand  it  is  found  in  some  measure  even  in 
the  lowest  forms  of  the  human  race,  where  the 
intellect  is  least  developed,  yet,  on  the  other  hand, 
has  advanced,  even  where  the  intellect  has  remained 
stationary.  If  the  Greek  was  an  advance  on  the 
barbarian,  the  Christian  in  his  highest  state  is  a  far 
greater  advance  on  the  heathen.  It  is  in  this  in- 
definite growth  of  the  spiritual  man,  as  compared 
with  the  stationary  character  of  the  earthly,  natural 
man,  that  we  gain  at  once  a  new  insight  into  the 
spiritual  forces  of  which  we  are  now  composed,  and 
a  new  hope  for  our  future.  Rest  assured  that  our 
happiness,  our  dignity,  our  welfare  here  and  hereafter, 
depend  not  on  what  our  ancestors  were  thousands  of 
years  ago,  not  on  the  construction  of  our  outward 
frames,  nor  even  on  the  channels  through  which  our 
moral  natures  have  come  to  us,  nor  even   on  those 


2IO 


SERMONS. -NEW  YORK. 


[VII. 


high  mental  gifts  of  intellect,  mind,  and  genius— which 
are,  after  all,  gifts,  ornaments  of  ourselves,  not  our  very 
selves.  No,  not  on  any  of  these  things,  wonderful 
as  they  are,  and  greatly  as  they  contribute  to  our 
happiness,  does  the  real  destiny  of  men  or  of  natiors 
rest;  but  on  our  moral  nature  itself— on  what  we  are, 
on  what  we  do,  on  what  we  admire,  on  what  we  detest, 
on  what  we  love,  on  what  we  hate.  The  Prophet 
Ezekial  declared  long  ago  that  whatever  be  the 
parentage,  whatever  be  the  circumstance  of  anyone, 
"The  soul  that  sinneth  it  shall  die;  the  man  that  is 
just,  the  man  that  turneth  away  from  his  wickedness 
and  doeth  that  which  is  lawful  and  right  he  shalf 
surely  live."  However  much  the  outward  frame  may 
be  mortal,  however  much  the  intellect  may  change 
its  forms  with  each  succeeding  age — the  moral  and 
spiritual  nature  of  man  outlasts  all  convulsions  in  this 
life,  and  will,  we  humbly  trust,  outlast  death  itself. 
There  is  something  greater  than  the  resurrection  of 
the  body,  and  that  is  the  immortality  of  the  soul ; 
and  there  is  yet  something  greater  still,  and  that 
is  the  everliving,  quickening,  vivifying  power  of  the 
spirit.  "  O  that  Ishmael  might  live  before  thee." 
So,  as  it  has  been  finely  described  of  late,  we  are 
otten  tempted  to  say  with  Abraham,  as  we  look  at 


VII.] 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN. 


1 1 1 


the  brilliant  figures— whether  of  men  or  of  nations — 
that  pass  across  this  scene  with  their  dazzling  qualities, 
their  social  charms,  their  magnificent  appearance.  But 
it  is  not  Ishmael,  it  is*  Isaac,  the  homely  spiritual 
Isaac,  that  lives  and  endures  through  all  changes,  and 
has  within  him  the  pledge  of  perpetual  progress  and 
perpetual  youth.  It  is  the  character,  the  sum  total  of 
our  moral  being,  which  we  have  to  regard  in  the 
supreme  judgment.  This  self,  this  character,  is 
that  soul  which  we  cannot  exchange  for  any  other 
good  in  the  world.  It  is  this  of  which  the  Bible 
says,  "What  shall  it  profit  a  man  to  gain  the  whole 
world  and  lose  his  own  soul  ? "  his  own  spiritual, 
innermost,  moral  self.  It  is  this  great  doctrine  of  the 
Bible  which  was  expressed  in  other  words  in  the 
famous  warning  of  Necker  to  Mirabeau — equally  ap- 
plicable to  unscrupulous  brilliancy  everywhere,  whether 
in  Church  or  State,  in  young  or  old — "  You  have  too 
much  sense,  too  much  ability,  not  to  find  out  sooner 
or  later  that,  after  all,  morality  is  in  the  nature  of 
things." 

It  is  this  same  doctrine  which  at  the  Reforma- 
tion expressed  itself  both  in  the  saying  of  the  great 
Reformer  and  of  his  imperial  adversary.  "  Here 
stand  I,"  said   Luther ;  "  I    can  do  nothing  against 

P  2 


212  SERMONS.— NEW  YORK.  [vn. 

conscience."  "  To  endeavour  to  domineer  over  the 
conscience,"  was  the  confession  wrung  from  Charles  V., 
however  little  he  may  have  followed  it  out  in  practice, 
"  is  to  invade  the  citadel  of  heaven."  It  is  this  doc- 
trine of  the  supremacy  of  conscience,  whether  as  in- 
volved in  the  Bible,  or  familiar  to  us  as  it  is  drawn 
out  by  Butler,  which  corrects  the  pretensions  of  all 
artificial  authority.  All  human  authority,  civil  or 
ecclesiastical,  must  in  the  last  resort  be  alike  subor- 
dinate to  the  one  Divine  authority  which  speaks  to  us 
through  the  voice  of  conscience.  When  the  Apostles 
declared,  and  when  we  after  them  declare  that  we 
must  obey  God  rather  than  man,  it  was  not  the  re- 
pudiation of  the  laws  of  ruler  or  magistrate ;  it  was 
then  the  assertion  of  the  supremacy  of  conscience 
against  the  authority  of  a  Sanhedrin  of  priests  and 
scribes,  as  it  still  may  be  against  the  authority  of  a 
Pontiff,  a  Synod,  or  a  Council.  It  is  this  doctrine 
also  which  is  the  foundation  of  all  true  spiritual  in- 
dependence— that  is,  of  the  independence  by  which  a 
brave  man  acts  for  himself  and  by  himself,  regardless  of 
adverse  critics  or  fashion,  or  carping  foes,  or — what  is 
still  more  difficult  to  withstand — of.  lukewarm  friends. 
"They  have  said.  What  say  they?  Let  them  say." 
That  is  the  noble  motto  of  the  chief  college  in  the 


VII.] 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAX. 


213 


University  of  Aberdeen.  It  should  be  the  motto  also 
of  every  resolute  soul,  which  cares  more  for  mind  than 
for  matter,  more  for  quality  than  for  quantity,  more 
for  God  than  for  man. 

It  is  this  doctrine,  also,  of  the  superiority  of  the 
spiritual  nature  of  man  above  his  physical  frame, 
which,  as  it  is  our  safeguard  against  the  materialism  of 
the  scientific  lecture-room,  is  also  our  safeguard  against 
the  materialism  of  the  altar  and  the  sacristy.  Such  a 
materialism  has  pervaded  many  ages  and  minds,  to 
which  the  philosophy  of  Democritus  and  Lucretius  was 
quite  unknown.  When  for  a  thousand  years  the  Chris- 
tian Church  believed  that  the  eternal  weal  or  woe  of 
human  beings  depended  on  the  immersion  of"  the 
human  body  or  sprinkling  the  forehead  in  a  baptistry 
or  a  font  of  water ;  when  the  regeneration  of  nations, 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  or  even  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
was  supposed  to  depend  on  the  possession  of  a  dead 
bone,  or  a  fragment  of  wood,  or  a  contemplation  of  the 
anatomical  structure  of  the  Redeemer's  heart ;  when 
Dodwell  maintained  that  in  its  own  nature  the  soul 
was  mortal,  and  that  none  but  bishops  had  the  power 
of  giving  to  it  "the  Divine  immortalising  spirit;"  when 
a  celebrated  English  divine  maintained  some  fifty  years 
ago  that  the  ordinary  means  by  which  a  human  being 


214  SERMONS.— NEW  YORK.  [vn. 

acquired  immortality  was  by  physically  partaking  of  the 
bread  and  wine  of  the  Eucharist — these  were  all  so 
many  attempts  to  sink  the  spiritual  in  the  material,  to 
resolve  the  spirit  of  man  into  the  material  particles  of 
meat  and  drink,  of  inanimate  substances,  and  of  things 
that  perish  with  the  using.  No  doubt  the  vital  power 
of  Christianity,  the  inherent  force  of  its  immense 
spirituality,  always  rose  far  above  these  carnal  and 
beggarly  elements ;  no  doubt  their  own  elevation  of 
character  and  genius  carried  many  of  these  teachers, 
whether  ancient  or  modern,  far  beyond  the  region  of 
such  physical  or  metaphysical  theories,  into  their  own 
pure  and  lofty  ideal  of  morality  and  holiness.  But  it 
was  the  glory  of  the  Reformation,  it  was  the  especial 
glory  of  the  fir-sighted  Reformer  of  Zurich,  to  proclaim 
beyond  mistake  that  the  significance  of  sacred  rites 
consists  not  in  their  physical  but  in  their  moral  essence 
■ — not  in  the  perishable  accidents  of  their  outward 
tokens,  or  in  the  precise  forms  of  their  ministration,  but 
in  the  souls  and  spirits  of  their  receivers.  It  is  the 
continual  protest  of  the  most  deeply  inspired  utterances 
of  the  Bible  from  first  to  last.  "My  heart  and  my 
flesh  faileth,"  said  the  Psalmist — all  that  is  outward  and 
material  may  vanish  away — but  nevertheless  "  God  is 
the  strength  of  my  heart  and  my  portion  for  ever." 


VII.]  THE  NATURE  OF  MAN 


215 


"  Though  worms  destroy  this  flesh,  yet  without  my 
flesh  " — without  this  outward  covering — "  I  shall  see 
God/'  was  the  hope  of  the  patriarch  Job.  "The  flesh 
profiteth  nothing :  the  words  that  I  speak  unto  you,  they 
are  spirit  and  they  are  life  " — so  we  hear  the  teaching 
of  Christ  Himself.  "Heaven  and  earth" — all  that  is 
material,  all  that  is  external — "  shall  pass  away ;  but  my 
words  " — the  living,  inspiring  expressions  of  wisdom  and 
mercy  and  truth — "  shall  never  pass  away."  "  The  king- 
dom of  God  is  not  meat  and  drink,  but  righteousness  and 
peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost " — so  spake  not  once 
only,  but  again  and  again,  the  Apostle  PauL  Wherever 
the  mind  of  the  worshipper,  whether  in  Catholic  or 
Protestant  Churches,  is  fixed  on  the  outward  insttad 
of  the  inward,  the  accidental  instead  of  the  essential, 
the  temporary  instead  of  the  eternal,  there,  and  in  that 
proportion,  the  original  spirit  of  the  Gospel  is  exchanged 
for  the  Judaic,  the  Etruscan,  the  Brahminical.  'When- 
ever, whether  in  Catholic  or  Protestant,  whether  in 
heathen  or  Christian  lands,  the  irrational,  the  magical, 
the  inanimate,  gives  place  to  the  reasonable,  the  holy, 
and  the  living  service  of  the  human  soul  to  God — there, 
from  the  rising  up  of  the  sun  to  the  going  down  of  the 
same,  the  pure  sacrifice,  the  true  incense,  is  offered, 
by  which  alone  man  can  hope  to  prevail  with  his  Maker. 


216  SERMONS.— NEW  YORK.  [vn. 


I  have  thus  briefly  run  through  all  these  several 
exemplifications  of  the  Biblical  doctrine  of  the  supe- 
riority of  spirit  to  matter,  because  thus  only  can  we 
see  its  far-reaching  scope.  But  it  gives  the  full  mean- 
ing also  to  the  whole  object  of  our  lives.  In  the 
two  national  Catechisms  of  Great  "Britain — the  cate- 
chism of  the  Church  of  England  and  the  catechism 
of  the  Church  of  Scotland — the  question  of  the  text, 
though  in  somewhat  different  terms,  stands  in  the 
forefront  of  each.  "  What  is  your  name  ?"  is  the 
question  put  in  our  Catechism;  and  the  answer  is  the 
Christian  name  by  which  we  were  dedicated  to  God 
in  our  infancy.  It  may  seem— perhaps  it  may  actually 
be  in  its  literal  meaning— a  trivial  question.  Yet  it 
must  have  been  intended  to  lead  us  to  the  thought, 
not  trivial,  but  exceedingly  serious — that  the  aim,  the 
object,  the  essence  of  our  being,  that  which  is  expressed 
by  the  name  that  distinguishes  our  own  personal  identity 
and  character,  is  the  moral  service  of  the  Holy  and 
True  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.  And  the  question  of 
the  Scottish  Catechism  is  like  unto  it — only  expressed 
in  a  more  direct  and  lofty  form,  and  addressed  not 
to  the  individual  but  to  the  race :  "  What  is  the  chief 
end  of  man?"  and  the  answer  is:  "Man's  chief  end 
is  to  glorify  God  and  to  enjoy  Him  for  ever."    It  is 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN. 


217 


to  glorify  the  Supreme  Goodness  and  the  Supreme 
Truth  by  being  good  and  true  ;  and  it  is  to  enjoy  the 
triumph  of  goodness  and  the  triumph  of  truth  above 
all  earthly  consideration  and  through  all  the  ages  of 
our  existence. 

(3-)  There  is  yet  one  other  inquiry  bound  up  in 
the  question:  "What  is  man?"  "What  is  thy  name?" 
The  answer  of  the  Patriarch  to  the  Divine  Inquirer 
was  more  than  the  Patriarch  himself  knew.  He  said, 
"Jacob."  But  the  true  reply  was:  "Thy  name  shall 
no  longer  be  called  Jacob,"  the  supplanter,  "but 
Israel,"  the  conqueror  of  God.  He  was  two  beings 
wrapt  up  in  one  — even  his  innermost  self  had  two 
natures,  two  names,  each  striving  for  the  mastery  ■  the 
earthly  (may  we  not  even  say  the  mean,  the  fiendish?) 
Jacob  ;  the  princely  (may  we  not  almost  say  the 
angelic,  the  Divine?)  Israel.  This  is  a  question  which, 
even  more  than  the  general  inquiry  of  which  we.  have 
been  speaking,  comes  home  to  each  of  us.  There  is 
not  only  the  question,  "  What  is  man  ?"  but  the  ques- 
tion, "What  is  this  man?"  "What  art  thou,  O  man? 
What  is  thy  name?"  and  in  each  of  us,  even  in  the 
very  seat  of  our  being,  there  are— as  in  Jacob— two, 
nay,  sometimes  three  or  five,  separate  characters 
striving  for  the  mastery.    It  is  that  conflict  between 


218  SERMONS.— NEW  YORK.  [vil. 

two  contending  principles — that  dialogue,  as  it  were, 
between  "the  two  voices" — which  is  one  of  the 
profoundest  mysteries  of  our  nature,  but  which  the 
Bible  itself  fully  acknowledges.  We  see  it  in  the 
dark  struggle  within  the  single  mind  of  the  author 
of  Ecclesiastes.  We  see  it  in  the  dramatic  form 
of  the  Book  of  Job  and  the  Song  of  Solomon.  We 
see  it  not  only  in  the  twofold  character  of  Jacob, 
but  in  the  double,  treble,  quadruple  character  of 
David.  We  see  it  in  the  multiplied  demons— one, 
two,  seven  —  mounting  till  their  name  is  Legion, 
which,  however  we  explain  the  phrase,  took  posses- 
sion of  their  victims  in  the  Gospel  history.  We 
see  it  in  the  flux  and  reflux  of  the  better  mind 
of  Peter,  described  in  a  few  successive  verses  as 
the  Rock  of  the  Church,  and  as  Satan,  its  deadly 
enemy.  We  see  it  in  the  distractions  and  divisions 
in  the  mind  of  Paul  in  the  seventh  chapter  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  We  see  it  through  the 
long  history  of  mankind  and  of  Christendom  :  the 
mixture  of  the  hypocrite  and  the  saint ;  the  union 
of  the  coward  with  the  hero;  the  fool  luiking  in  the 
innermost  chambers  of  the  mind  of  the  wisest;  the 
filthy  thought  ensconcing  itself  in  the  crystal  heart  of 
the   purest ;   the   versatile   genius  with   his  hundred 


VII.] 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN 


219 


hands  and  hundred  faces.  We  see  it  in  what  Colbert 
called  the  official  conscience  of  the  Sorbonne  and  the 
natural  conscience  of  the  man  and  the  citizen.  We 
see  it  in  the  old  barbarian  Adam  lurking  within  the 
folds  of  the  new  civilised  Adam  of  later  days.  We 
see  it  in  the  old  theological  Adam  striving  to  main- 
tain his  own  against  the  new,  Christian,  spiritual,  Adam 
in  each  successive  generation.  It  surely  is  not  without 
cause  that  we  call  attention  to  this  doctrine  of  the 
double  side  of  human  nature  thus  running  through  the 
Bible  and  through  historical  experience.  Common- 
place, obvious  as  it  is,  it  has  been  a  thousand  times 
overlooked,  and  yet  is  at  least  as  important  as  the 
theory  of  Pelagius  or  the  theory  of  Augustine.  It  is 
the  true  antidote  to  those  undiscriminating  judgment, 
which  have  been  the  bane  of  ecclesiastical  history 
and  of  theological  speculation.  It  bids  us  to  refuses 
on  the  very  threshold  of  any  Church  or  any  system, 
its  claim  to  be  either  all  good  or  all  evil — to  be  either 
Christ  or  Antichrist.  It  renounces  at  the  outset  the 
possibility  of  an  unerring  oracle  lodged  in  any  human 
institution  or  of  absolute  allegiance  to  any  human 
party.  It  commands  us  unhesitatingly  to  admire  the 
admirable,  to  detest  the  detestable,  even  in  the  same 
individuals,  in  the  same  party,  in  the  same  Church 


220  SERMONS.— NEW  YORK.  [vn 


or  nation.  Wherever  the  contrast  has  been  repeated 
in  human  history  between  Jacob,  the  selfish,  timid, 
crafty  slave,  and  Israel,  the  persevering  indomitable 
wrestler  with  the  Almighty,  there  the  theology  of  the 
Bible  and  the  philosophy  of  life  alike  call  us  to 
refuse  the  evil  and  choose  the  good,  without  partiality 
and  without  hypocrisy.  "With  Samuel  Rutherford,  the 
bitter  and  bigoted  controversialist,"  says  an  excellent 
living  divine  of  Scotland,  "let  us  have  no  fellowship. 
To  Samuel  Rutherford,  the  devout  and  spiritual  pastor, 
let  the  full  sympathies  of  our  soul  be  given."  That 
is  a  judgment  which  must  be  often  and  often  repeated. 
Milton,  the  sublime,  unearthly  poet,  and  Milton,  the 
savage  antagonist  of  Salmasius ;  Wesley's  Christian 
wisdom  and  Wesley's  eccentric  folly;  Bossuet,  the 
magnificent  Christian  orator,  and  Bossuet,  the  per- 
secutor of  the  Huguenots  ;  the  grace  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  their  hideous  atrocities;  the  splendour  of 
the  Reformation,  and  its  deplorable  failures;  Benedict 
Arnold,  the  hero  of  Saratoga,  and  Benedict  Arnold, 
the  traitor  of  West  Point ;  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  the 
restorer  of  order  in  France,  and  Napoleon  Bonaparte, 
the  mean  and  selfish  despot;  all  these  we  must  alike 
recognise,  alike  admire,  and  alike  lament.  Avoid  that 
dismal  fatalism  which  insists  on  accepting  the  crimes 


vii.]  THE  NATURE  OF  MAN.  221 

and  follies  of  men  as  though ,  they  were  the  indis- 
pensable conditions  of  great  deeds  or  great  characters. 

(4.)  And  there  is  yet  one  final  reflection  which  occurs 
to  us  when  we  contemplate  the  possibilities  of  human 
nature,  and  its  capacities  of  conquest  over  its  meaner 
self.  We  sometimes  are  tempted  in  despair — teachers 
and  taught  alike— to  imagine  that  as  the  child,  the 
boy,  the  youth  is  born,  so  he  must  grow  up  to  the 
end,  that  Jacob  will  be  always  Jacob,  that  no  force  of 
circumstance  or  education  can  ever  change  the  spots 
of  the  human  leopard  or  the  skin  of  the  moral  Ethio- 
pian. To  a  certain  degree,  no  doubt,  this  is  true.  The 
stamp  of  individual  character  is  ineffaceable;  there  are 
many  innate  qualities  and  gifts  and  passions  which  can 
never  be  either  given  or  taken  away  in  later  life.  Look 
— if,  out  of  the  wide  course  of  history,  I  may  select  two 
as  occupying  conspicuous  places  in  the  annals  of  man- 
kind, and  as  having  been  described  by  the  most  powerful 
delineator  of  historical  characters  that  perhaps  the 
world  has  ever  seen — look  at  the  characters  of  the 
Regent  Orleans  and  of  the  Second  Dauphin,  as  por- 
trayed by  the  Duke  of  St.  Simon.  The  one,  with  a 
disposition  so  generous,  so  easy,  so  upright,  destroyed, 
enervated,  petrified  before  the  very  eyes  of  his  despairing 
friends  by  the  debasing,  scoffing,  cynical  influences  of 


222 


SERMONS.— NEW  YORK. 


[VII. 


him  who  was  the  shame  of  the  Church  of  France  and 
of  the  Court  of  Rome,  Cardinal  Dubois.  The  other, 
in  his  early  years,  so  ungovernable,  so  self-willed — one 
might  almost  say  so  brutal — growing  under  the  influence 
of  his  pure-minded  and  faithful  advisers,  the  Duke  of 
Beauvilliers  and  the  Duke  of  Chevreuse,  his  high-minded 
and  excellent  servant  Moreau,  and  the  best  moods  of 
his  enlightened,  noble-minded  preceptor  Fe'nelon,  to 
become  the  model  prince  of  all  times,  modest,  yet 
self-possessed,  deeply  religious,  yet  constantly  becoming 
more  and  more  liberal,  more  and  more  tolerant;  who, 
had  he  been  spared  to  ascend  the  throne,  might  in  all 
human  probability  have  averted  the  occasion  of  the 
French  Revolution.  I  have  named  these  two  famous 
examples,  because  actual  examples  are  worth  a  thousand 
nameless  allusions.  But  it  is  not  necessary  to  go  to 
past  history,  or  to  the  courts  of  Princes,  in  order  to 
prove  that  it  is  possible — even  with  all  the  fixity  of 
human  character,  with  all  the  fixity  of  general  laws — 
that  the  rising,  growing,  changing  generation  of  the 
youth  of  England  and  the  youth  of  America,  may, 
under  God,  be  converted,  born  again,  by  a  conversion, 
by  a  regeneration  not  less  complete  because  its  wrest  lings 
and  convulsions  are  not  visible,  or  its  origin  marked  by 
any  outward  material  sign.    How  many  a  young  man 


VII.l 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN 


223 


has  ere  now  been  transfigured  by  the  near  influence  of 
a  faithful  friend,  sticking  closer  than  a  brother,  warding 
off  temptations,  making  him  feel,  till  it  became  part 
of  himself,  how  beautiful,  how  godlike  a  thing  is  the 
bright  and  stainless  career  of  unselfish  and  uncorrupted 
goodness  !  How  many  an  enduring  aim  and  purpose 
of  life  has  been  inspired  by  such  friend  or  such  teacher, 
which,  with  "  the  expulsive  power  of  a  new  affection," 
drives  before  it  all  that  is  base  and  trivial,  leaving 
us  masters  of .  ourselves,  and  inheritors  of  the  true 
kingdom  of  God. 

And  if  there  be  any  place  on  earth  where  this 
conflict  of  the  human  spirit  with  the  material,  or  the 
better  part  of  the  human  spirit  with  the  worser  part, 
is  clearly  brought  before  us,  it  is  in  this  great  city. 
When  we  look  at  its  small  beginnings,  the  Dutch 
settlement  gathered  round  the  puny  church,  the  little 
fortress  on  the  green  point  of  land  between  the  two 
enclosing  streams,  its  humble  wall  or  palisade  defending 
the  timid  colonists  within  from  the  incursions  of  the 
neighbouring  Indian  tribes;  and  then  look  at  the 
illimitable  extension  of  this  Babylon  of  the  West,  its 
endless  traffic  and  thoroughfare  of  rival  nations,  these 
hanging  ways  over  which  the  more  than  Babylonian 
whirl  and  stir  rolls  its  chariot  wheels  above  our  heads, 


124 


SERMONS.— NEW  YORK. 


[VII. 


we  see  how  the  human  will  and  intellect  has  worked 
out  of  these  material  conditions  a  destiny  which  a 
hundred  years  ago  could  never  have  been  conceived, 
we  see  how  a  new  creation  has  been  formed  almost 
within  the  lifetime  of  a  single  generation.  External 
nature  has  had  her  share,  but  the  mind  of  man  must 
claim  a  still  larger  part. 

But  then  arises  with  increasing  strength  the  ques- 
tion, whether  that  higher  spirit  of  man,  of  which  we 
have  been  speaking,  has  also  borne  its  part;  whether 
in  the  midst  of  this  great  Babylon  we  can  trace  signs 
of  the  Jerusalem  which  is  from  above,  and  which  is 
free  from  earthly  entanglements.  The  traveller  who 
has  come  from  beyond  the  sea,  and  returns  to  his 
home  in  the  small  island  where  his  duties  lie,  feels 
his  own  conceptions  of  the  imperial  capacities  of  his 
race  increased.  But  he  also  asks  whether  there  has 
been,  and  will  be,  a  corresponding  growth  of  that 
without  which  wealth,  and  fame,  and  vast  extent  of 
territory,  are  but  as  dust  in  the  balance.  Bigness  is 
not  of  necessity  greatness,  nor  is  splendour  of  itself 
civilisation,  nor  is  even  indomitable  will  and  per- 
severance absolutely  identical  with  progress.  Some- 
times, as  we  think  of  the  chequered  history,  whether 
of  the  long  annals  of  the  mother  country,  or  the 


vii.l  THE  NATURE  OF  MAN.  225 

no  less  chequered  history  of  this  country,  short  in 
duration  but  long  in  eventful  characters  and  eventful 
incidents,  there  comes  to  our  minds  the  recollection 
of  those  lines  of  the  cynical  poet  of  England : 

New  times,  new  climes,  new  lands,  new  men,  but  still 
The  same  old  tears,  old  crimes,  and  oldest  ill. 

Yet  with  this  we  must  combine,  if  possible,  the  brighter 
prospect  of  the  Christian  poet,  which,  though  referring 
only  to  the  duties  and  tasks  of  daily  life,  may  be 
applied  also  to  the  fortunes  of  empires  and  Churches, 
even  of  those  which  were  least  in  his  mind : 

New  perils  past,  new  sins  forgiven, 
New  thoughts  of  God,  new  hopes  of  heaven, 
New  treasures  still,  of  countless  price, 
God  will  provide  for  sacrifice. 

When  we  think,  whether  in  England  or  in  America, 
of  the  boundless  generosity  of  individuals  ;  when  we 
remember  the  kindliness  and  purity  of  domestic  hearths  ; 
when  we  think  of  the  efforts  of  the  higher  and  more 
civilised  portion  of  each  nation,  our  hearts  refuse  to  be 
disquieted.  We  call  to  mind  the  proud  motto  of  the 
State  of  New  York,  into  which  the  venerable  poet  of 
America  has,  in  his  immortal  verses,  thrown  a  yet 
loftier  meaning — "  Excelsior."     Higher  and  yet  higher 


226 


SERMONS.— NEW  YORK. 


[vii. 


must  the  aim  of  spiritual  and  moral  effort  soar,  if  it 
is  to  keep  pace  with  its  national  splendour,  if  it  is  not  to 
be  led  captive  in  the  train  of  its  vices.  More  strenuous 
and  yet  more  strenuous,  must  the  struggle  be  if  it  is  to 
reach  to  the  summit  of  the  great  ambition  of  this  New 
World.  "  Human  courage  must  rise  to  the  level  of 
human  adversity " — that  was  a  noble  saying  of  an 
American  general  whom  both  sides  in  the  late  civil 
conflict  delighted  to  honour.  Human  virtue,  we  may 
add,  must  rise  to  the  level  of  human  corruption  and 
human  temptation. 

And  when  we  speak  of  cities  and  nations,  let  it  be 
always  remembered  that  such  words  are  futile  unless 
they  reach  individuals.  He  who  speaks  here  is  speaking 
almost  his  last  words  in  this  country.  To  every  man,  to 
every  young  man  especially  of  that  rising  generation  on 
whom  its  future  depends  he  would  say,  with  all  the  serious- 
ness of  which  he  is  capable :  "  Thou  hast  this  double 
nature ;  thou  hast  what  one  of  the  purest  of  your  poets 
calls  this  'dual  mind.'  Choose,  therefore,  whosoever 
thou  be  to  whom  these  words  shall  come  with  any  force, 
choose  between  the  better  and  the  worse.  It  is  the 
tragic  interest  of  thy  life  that  the  evil  may  predominate 
and  become  thyself;  it  is  the  sublime  hope  of  thy  life 
that  the  good  shall  predominate  and  become  thyself. 


vii.]  THE  NATURE  OF  MAN  227 

'  Thy  name  shall  be  called  no  more  Jacob,  but  Israel ; 
for  as  a  prince  of  God  thou  shalt  have  power  with  God 
and  with  man,  and  shalt  prevail'  Thou  hast  it  in  thy 
power  to  become  the  slave  of  passion,  the  slave  of 
luxury,  the  slave  of  senseless  party  spirit,  the  slave  of 
corruption.  Thou  hast  it  in  thy  power  also  to  become 
the  free  controller  of  thyself,  the  everlasting  benefactor 
of  thy  country,  the  unfailing  champion  of  thy  God." 


Q  2 


VIII. 


THE  NATURE   OF  GOD. 

PREACHED  IN  THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  HOLY  TRINITY,  NEW  YORK, 
SUNDAY  EVENING,   NOV.  3,  1878. 

"Tell  me  thy  name." — Genesis  xxxii.  29,  30. 

On  this,  the  last  time  on  which  I  address  a  con- 
gregation in  this  country,  I  propose  to  dwell  on  a 
subject  which  concerns  us  all,  and,  having  elsewhere 
spoken  of  the  Nature  of  Man,  to  speak  of  the  Nature 
of  God. 

The  belief  in  God  has,  in  these  later  days,  been 
strangely  represented  from  opposite  sides  as  of  slight 
importance.  On  the  one  hand  there  is  a  tendency 
in  certain  critics,  after  demolishing  by  a  great  appa- 
ratus of  argument  and  learning,  a  variety  of  state- 
ments in  the  sacred  books,  to  announce  that  the 
Divine  and  supernatural  has  been  eliminated  from  the 
knowledge  of  man  altogether ;  whilst  all  the  time 
they  do  not  profess  to  touch  —  nay,  even  claim  to 


vm.]  THE  NATURE  OF  GOD.  229 

retain  —  their  belief  in  the  one  Divine  and  super- 
natural source  of  all  things.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
is  a  corresponding  tendency  in  a  certain  class  of  theo- 
logians to  treat  this  great  admission,  this  great  assertion, 
as  of  little  value ;  insomuch  that  amongst  the  odious 
and  offensive  names  of  theological  disparagement,  one 
of  the  most  odious  is  the  appellation  which,  whether 
in  its  Greek  or  Latin  form,  means  a  believer  in  God. 
YVe  surely  need  not  concur  with  either  of  these  views. 
Is  it  not  certain  that,  if  there  be  such  a  thing  as 
theology  at  all,  it  must  be  an  attempt  to  give  an 
account  of  God  ?  Is  it  not  at  once  our  policy  and 
our  duty  to  maintain  that  wheresoever  and  so  long 
as  this  belief  remains,  the  true  supernatural,  the  true 
ideal,  immaterial  idea  is  not  abandoned?  that  from 
this,  as  from  an  impregnable  citadel,  we  may  view 
with  calmness  the  approaches  of  friends  or  assailants 
towards  it?  We  need  to  be  reminded  sometimes 
that  .there  is  a  regenerating,  inspiring  force  in  the 
belief  which,  even  in  its  most  general  and  inde- 
finite form,  could  enkindle  as  with  a  soul  of  fire 
the  scanty,  though  intense,  faith  of  Job  and  David, 
of  Plato  and  Marcus  Aurelius,  and  which  in  our  own 
day  could  furnish  the  chief  incentive  to  the  youthful 
piety  of  Chalmers,  and  appeal  to  the  matured  expe- 


230  SERMONS.— NEW  YORK.  [vm. 

rience  of  Mary  Somerville,  who,  in  her  ninety-third 
year,  reposed' with  unshaken  confidence  on  the  Supreme 
Eternal  Mind  which  contained  all  beauty  and  all  wisdom, 
all  truth  and  all  goodness.  The  religious  element  of 
the  world  is  not  dying  out  so  long  as,  amidst  whatever 
doubts  and  difficulties,  the  inquirer  takes  refuge  (as  in 
one  well-known  touching  instance  of  our  own  time)  in 
the  unassailable  fortress  of  the  faith  in  God,  which, 
"even  in  the  dread  hour  when  the  shadows  of  death 
are  gathering  around  us,  when  the  world  fades  from 
our  sight,  and  the  human  faculties  fail,  when  the 
reason  is  enfeebled  and  the  memory  relaxes  its  grasp, 
still  remains  the  Supreme  Consoler,  soothing  the  last 
moments,  and  pointing  to  a  ray  of  light  beyond  the 
mystery  of  the  grave."  It  may  be  that  there  shall 
be  some  who,  when  they  review-  the  theological  con- 
troversies of  the  last  fifty  years,  and  the  wanderings 
of  the  two  gifted  brothers  who,  each  from  opposite 
points  of  view,  have  shone  as  lights  in  English  Chris- 
tendom, and  traversed  many  a  phase  of  faith  and 
many  a  subtle  speculation,  will  find  that  amidst  their 
several  works,  the  one  which  will  outlive  the  polemics 
of  the  first,  and  the  doubts  of  the  second,  will  be 
that  profound  and  pathetic  analysis  in  which  the 
younger  of  the  two  has  described  the  relation  of  the 


VIII.] 


231 


soul  to  God,  "the  course  by  which  the  soul,  weak 
and  wandering  as  a  storm-driven  bird,  learns  to  nestle 
in  the  bosom  of  the  Infinite  One."  It  is  by  making 
the  most  and  not  the  least  of  this  primeval  yet  un- 
exhausted belief,  that  we  can  best  hope  to  strengthen 
the  foundation  and  extend  the  sphere  of  religious 
thought;  and  everyone,  young  or  old,  in  this  con- 
gregation may  perchance  be  the  better  and  wiser 
for  turning  to  a  brief  meditation  upon  it.  What  I 
propose  to  attempt  is  the  humble,  yet,  I  trust,  not 
altogether  unprofitable  task  of  drawing  out  from  the 
Bible  itself  its  basis  of  teaching  on  the  nature  of  God. 
And  for  this  purpose  I  will  again  take  the  story  of 
Jacob's  vision  as  the  framework  of  what  I  have  to 
say,  because  it  well  expresses  the  aspect  under  which 
this  great  truth  appears  in  the  Scriptures,  and  appears 
also  to  the  intelligence  of  man  in  proportion  to  his 
elevation  and  advancement. 

As  there  is  a  varying  theology  of  the  sixth,  thir- 
teenth, and  eighteenth  centuries,  as  there  is  a  separate 
theology  of  Greek  and  Latin  and  German  Christendom, 
so  also  there  is  a  theology  of  the  Bible ;  changing,  in- 
deed, with  the  changes  of  the  successive  ages  through 
which  the  sacred  literature  runs,  but  yet  sufficiently 
distinct  from  those  later  developments  and  sufficiently 


232  SERMONS.— NEW  YORK.  [vm. 


homogeneous  to  justify  us  in  considering  it  apart  and 
regarding  it  as  the  best  guide  to  our  thoughts.  On 
the  one  hand  the  Bible  describes,  and  every  human 
being  above  the  mere  savage  feels,  the  sense  of 
something  around,  beneath,  above  us  which  we  cannot 
see,  or  touch,  or  comprehend  fully  —  the  "traveller 
unknown "  in  the  watches  of  the  night,  whose  course 
we  cannot  cross,  whose  embrace  we  cannot  evade, 
suggesting  more  than  is  revealed.  Not  less  surely 
than  the  dumb  animals,  so  far  as  they  can  think  or 
feel,  must  be  conscious  of  another  agency,  of  another 
order  of  being  in  the  world  beside  themselves,  namely, 
the  human  race,  whose  ways  and  thoughts  are  not 
as  their  ways — not  less  surely  is  the  human  race 
itself  aware  of  a  space  in  the  universe  which  it  does 
not  fill,  and  a  law  which  it  did  not  create.  As  it  has 
been  well  said  by  a  well-known  writer  :  "  We  did  not 
make  our  own  nature  ;  we  know  that  we  did  not. 
Influences  which  shape  our  conduct  and  our  destiny 
come  to  us  from  without.  Felicities  and  facilities, 
whence  do  they  spring  ?  Suggestions  and  stimulations, 
whither  do  they  tend  ?  There  is  something  about  us 
that  often  knows  better  what  we  would  be  at  than 
we  ourselves."  And  yet  this  power,  this  overruling 
influence,  who  can  adequately  grasp  ?     The  ancient 


VIII.]  THE  NATURE  OF  GOD.  233 

heathen  religions  tried  to  dogmatise  upon  it  by  ima- 
gining separate  divinities  in  every  country  and  in 
every  influence  of  nature.  But  it  is  one  of  the  grand 
peculiarities  of  the  Bible,  one  of  the  most  striking 
instances  of  what  may  be  called  the  prophetic  or  pre- 
dictive power  in  the  Hebrew  and  Christian  Scriptures, 
that  notwithstanding,  shall  we  say,  or  in  consequence 
of,  the  depth  of  their  religious  insight,  they  recognise 
to  the  full  all  that  can  be  said  in  modern  times  of 
the  inscrutable  unknown  nature  of  this  vast  influence 
which  directs,  and  controls,  and  sets  in  motion  the 
universe.  "  Lo  !  these  are  parts  of  His  ways.  But 
how  small  a  portion  is  heard  of  Him.  Canst  thou 
by  searching  find  out  God  ?  Canst  thou  find  out 
the  perfection  of  the  Almighty  ?  It  is  more  high 
than  heaven.  What  canst  thou  do  ?  Deeper  even 
than  hell.  What  canst  thou  know  ?  No  man  has  seen 
God  at  any  time.  O  the  depth  of  the  riches  both 
of  wisdom  and  the  knowledge  of  God ;  how  unsearch- 
able are  His  judgments  and  His  ways  past  finding 
out!"  In  this  darkness  can  we  wonder  that  human 
thought  and  language  at  times  fail  altogether?  It  is 
the  fool  who  says  in  his  heart :  "  There  is  no  God." 
It  is  not  the  fool,  but  the  wise  man,  who  is  often 
silent  before  this  immense  mysterious  presence.  And 


2  34 


SERMONS.— NEW  YORK. 


[VIII. 


if  at  times  he  should  stagger  and  stumble  in  endea- 
vouring to  arrange  his  conception,  then  it  is  no  infidel 
philosopher,  but  the  sainted  Augustine,  who  said : 
"Let  those  rage  against  you  who  know  not  with 
what  labour  truth  is  found,  and  with  what  diffi- 
culty error  can  be  avoided,  who  know  not  with  what 
sighings  and  groanings  that  cannot  be  uttered,  even 
the  smallest  particle  is  attained  of  the  full  understand- 
ing of  God.  God  exists  move  truly  than  He  can  be 
thought  of.  He  can  be  thought  of  more  truly  than 
He  can  be  spoken  of."  "  Why  askest  thou  after  My 
name,  seeing  that  it  is  secret?"  "God  is  in  heaven 
and  thou  upon  earth ;  therefore  let  thy  words  be  few." 
It  is  with  the  separate  glimpses  of  the  Divinity  as 
with  the  famous  Torso  in  the  Vatican,  the  fragment 
of  some  noble  statue,  the  memorial  of  some  super- 
human struggle,  which  Michael  Angelo  in  the  blind- 
ness of  his  old  age  used  to  feel  round  and  round, 
gathering  by  touch  what  he  could  not  gain  by  sight, 
receiving  from  the  imperfect  fragment  an  inspiration 
of  the  unknown  whole.  "That  unfinished  block," 
he  used  to  say,  "  was  his  master,  and  he  was 
its  obedient  pupil."  This  was  a  true  likeness  of  the 
human  race,  or  its  most  gifted  members,  feeling, 
groping  after  God,  if  haply  they  might   find  Him. 


VIII.] 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOD. 


=  55 


Again  and  again  has  this  faint  touch  in  the  dark 
been  sufficient  to  light  up  the  soul.  Theodore  Parker, 
who,  whatever  else  were  his  convictions,  was  filled 
with  a  profound  belief  in  God,  was,  he  tells  us,  first 
inspired  with  it  by  the  inscrutable  power  of  the  inward 
voice,  which,  when  he  was  a  boy,  restrained  him  in 
sport  from  throwing  a  stone  at  a  tortoise.  It  was  a 
very  slight  indication,  but  to  his  capacious  intellect 
and  feeling  heart  it  was  enough.  Thus  far  we  are 
with  Jacob  in  his  midnight  wrestling.  We  see  not 
Him  with  whom  we  have  to  deal. 

But  the  human  mind  cannot  but  ask  and  strive 
to  figure  something  more.  Who  art  thou  ?  What 
art  thou  ?  "  Tell  us  thy  name."  That  is  the  question 
to  which  every  system  of  religion,  mythology,  theo- 
logy, endeavours  to  give  answers  more  or  less  true. 
There  are  many  answers  besides  those  which  we  find 
in  the  Bible.  There  are  all  those  names  of  "  Gods 
many  and  Lords  many,"  by  which  the  nations  of  an- 
tiquity imagined  to  themselves  the  Supreme  Divinity. 
All  these,  doubtless,  for  a  time  and  in  their  measure, 
soothed  the  souls  of  men.  They  are  all  passed  away. 
They  linger  only  in  the  names  of  the  stars  or  of  the 
days  of  the  week,  having  no  longer  any  relation  to 
our  actual  life.     There  are   again   the  many  names 


236  SERMONS.— NEW  YORK.  [vm. 

which  modern  theology  or  philosophy  has  invented — 
Essence,  Substance,  Personality,  Impersonality,  the 
First  Cause,  the  Universal  Whole,  the  Absolute  Being. 
These  and  many  like  names  may  no  doubt  be  useful 
as  clues  through  the  labyrinth  of  metaphysical  inquiry ; 
yet  they  are  not,  properly  speaking,  parts  of  religion. 
But  there  are  two  modes  in  which  the  questions  and 
answers  are  put  in  the  Bible  which  will  perhaps  be 
found  useful  both  to  the  learned  and  to  the  unlearned. 
They  both  appear  in  the  vision  of  Jacob — the  one  is 
indirect,  the  other  is  direct. 

Of  the  indirect  mode  we  have  examples  when  in 
this  story  it  is  said  that  the  Patriarch  saw  "  the  Face 
of  God;"  or  when  Moses  on  Horeb  said:  "Show  me 
Thy  glory ;  show  me  Thy  Face."  "  The  Face  of 
God."  It  is  a  most  expressive  word.  In  the  original 
it  is  the  same  phrase  which  is  translated  into  Greek 
by  one  of  the  words  which  in  Latin  and  in  English 
have  been  rendered  by  the  modern  word  of  which  I 
have  just  now  spoken,  "Person."  But  in  itself  it  is  at 
once  more  simple  and  more  profound.  We  ask,  as 
we  look  out  on  this  perplexed,  and  at  times  dark  and 
sorrowful  world,  what  is  the  countenance,  the  expression 
which  it  bears  towards  us,  in  which  direction  it  looks, 
in  which  direction  the  whole  movements  of  nature  and 


VIII.] 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOD. 


237 


of  the  events  of  life  are  set.  That  significance  and 
meaning  of  nature,  that  expression  of  the  course  of 
human  events  which  looks  upwards  and  forwards,  which 
we  gather  from  history  or  from  experience,  how  shall 
we  call  it  ?  The  Greeks  called  it  Fate.  Modern  philo- 
sophy speaks  of  it  as  Law.  The  theology  of  Calvin 
speaks  of  it  as  the  Divine  Counsel  or  Decree.  But  the 
old  Hebrew  phrase  is  more  striking,  and  perhaps  is  more 
intelligible  than  any  of  these.  The  Face,  the  Aspect, 
the  Countenance  of  the  Invisible.  "Turn  thy  face," 
says  the  Psalmist,  "  The  Lord  make  His  face  to  shine 
upon  us.  Lift  up  the  light  of  Thy  countenance  upon 
us."  It  has  been  said  truly  that  the  metaphor,  or  what 
is  intended  by  the  metaphor,  is  the  same  as  in  the 
word  "  Providence,"  that  is,  "  the  foresight  of  God  " — 
the  eyes,  the  face  of  God  looking  into  the  future.  It 
has  been  said,  by  a  keen  though  unfriendly  observer, 
that  the  one  article  of  popular  belief  in  England  is 
a  belief  in  Providence.  When  Roger  Williams,  the 
eccentric  but  noble  enthusiast,  who  first  in  this  country 
conceived  the  idea  of  religious  toleration,  reached  the 
shores  on  which  he  founded  his  settlement,  he  called 
it  "Providence,"  and  he  called  it  so  in  reference  to 
this  very  text  of  the  Bible,  because  he  said  he  had 
here  "seen  the  face  of  God  shining  upon  him  through 


238 


SERMONS.— NEW  YORK. 


[VIII, 


all  his  troubles."  That  idea  of  Providence  remains  im- 
mortalised in  the  famous  State  which  is  still  so  called. 
Do  not  part  with  this  belief.  Although  Providence  only 
provides  for  those  who  determine  to  provide  for  them- 
selves, yet,  still,  this  trust  in  Providence  seems  to  be  a 
chief  ground  of  the  buoyant,  inexhaustible  hope  which 
this  great  country  entertains  of  its  future  destiny. 

As  the  eye  of  a  picture  seems  to  follow  us,  as 
the  face  of  the  departed  recurs  to  us  in  dreams  or  in 
passing  clouds  or  in  the  flash  of  sudden  associations ; 
so  is  the  lifting  up  from  time  to  time  of  the  Divine 
countenance  behind  the  veil.  We  do  not  pretend  to 
fathom  the  whole  being  of  God  j  but  the  face,  the  eye, 
the  glance — this  perhaps  we  may  hope  to  see  and  to 
attain. 

And  then  we  ask  what  is  the  Countenance,  the  Face, 
the  Providence,  the  expression,  that  out  of  these  various 
aspects  looks  down  upon  us  most  steadily  in  the  dark- 
ness ?  This  brings  us  to  the  more  direct  mode  by  which 
the  soul  inquires  into  the  problem,  "Tell  me  Thy 
name  ?"  It  was  a  question,  as  we  have  said,  which,  in 
the  fullest  and  exactest  sense,  cannot  be  answered. 
"Wherefore  is  it  that  thou  dost  ask  after  my  name?" 
There  was  no  answer  to  Jacob  except  that  which  is 
sometimes  the  best  answer  of  all,  that  "he  was  blessed." 


viii.]  THE  NATURE  OE  GOD.  239 

Some  of  us  may  hive  read  the  beautiful  prayer  of 
Savonarola,  one  of  the  few  Christians  who  are  almost 
equally  revered  by  Protestants  and  Roman  Catholics, 
and  who,  in  his  last  days  of  distress  and  anguish,  thus 
poured  forth  his  soul  to  the  Almighty:  "God,  who 
inhabitest  light  inaccessible — God,  who  art  the  hidden 
God— who  canst  not  be  seen  by  the  eyes  of  the  body, 
nor  comprehended  by  the  created  intellect,  nor  be 
explained  by  tongue  of  man  or  of  angels— my  God,  I 
seek  Thee  though  I  cannot  grasp  Thee,  I  call  upon 
Thee  though  I  cannot  describe  Thee.  Whatever  Thou 
art,  Thou  art  everywhere ;  for  I  know  that  Thou  art  the 
greatest  of  things— if,  indeed,  Thou  be  a  thing,  and  not 
rather  the  Cause  of  all  things— if,  indeed,  Thou  be  a 
Cause,  for  I  find  no  name  wherewith  to  name  Thine 
ineffable  majesty."  That  was  the  way  in  which  the 
presence  of  the  unknown  Supreme  was  revealed  to 
Jacob ;  that  is  the  way  in  which  oftentimes  it  is  revealed 
to  us.  Where  metaphysical  forms  fail  to  express  our 
thoughts,  where  religious  doctrine  seems  to  elude  us, 
there  may  still  be  the  sense  that  the  everlasting  arms 
are  beneath  us,  and  blessings  break  on  our  heads. 
The  poor  Buddhist  pilgrim  who  prayed,  to  he  knew 
not  what,  for  support,  and  in  the  strength  of  that 
prayer  was-  sustained  body  and  soul  long  days  and 


2|0 


SERMONS.--  NEW  YORK. 


[viii. 


nights,  was  blessed,  and  that  blessing  was  enough 
tor  him.  The  Samoyede,  who  said  in  her  morning 
prayer:  "Sun,  arise,  I  arise  with  thee,"  and  in  her 
evening  prayer,  "  Sun,  go  to  rest,  I  rest  with  thee," 
expressed  a  sense  of  harmony  with  the  order  of  the 
world  which  raised  her  above  her  own  sluggish  life. 
Still,  indefinite  as  the  Divine  ideal  must  always  be, 
elevated  as  the  thought  of  almost  any  ideal  must  be, 
yet  the  whole  question  of  the  good  or  evil  of  a 
religion  must  ultimately  turn  upon  or  resolve  itself 
into  the  character  which  the  Divine  Nature  assumes, 
the  aspect  which  the  Divine  Countenance  wears.  The 
name  which  invests  the  ideal  with  a  false  misleading 
character  may  be  worse  than  no  ideal  at  all.  It  was 
this  made  Lord  Bacon  say :  "  It  were  better  to  have 
no  God  at  all  than  an  opinion  which  is  unworthy  of 
Him  ;  for  the  one  is  but  unbelief,  the  other  is  con- 
tumely." It  was  this  which  made  Wesley  say  that 
if  God  were  what  some  represent  Him  to  be,  He 
would  not  be  God,  but  the  Devil.  There  is  in  the 
Imperial  Library  of  St.  Petersburg  a  collection  of  the 
various  books  used  by  Voltaire,  and  gathered  by  the 
Empress  Catherine  round  the  statue  of  the  old  philo- 
sopher, bearing  on  their  margin  copious  annotations  in 
his  own  characteristic  handwriting.     Amongst  these  is 


vill.]  THE  NATURE  OF  GOD.  241 

a  well-known  French  work,  composed  to  disprove  the 
existence  of  a  Supreme  Being.  It  is  on  the  first  page 
of  this  work,  and  as  a  protest  against  the  whole  of  it. 
that  Voltaire  has  inscribed  his  famous  saying :  "  If  God 
did  not  exist,  we  should  have  to  invent  Him."  And 
in  this  scornful  and  indignant  strain  his  remarks  are 
continued  throughout  the  work.  The  main  strain  of 
his  arguments  is  always  to  urge  that  the  God 
whom  the  author  of  this  "system  of  nature"  was  en- 
deavouring to  subvert  was  not  the  God  who  is  alone 
worthy  of  the  adoration  of  the  true  philosopher  and 
the  true  religious  man.  The  position  which  Voltaire 
in  these  his  better  moments  maintained,  and  maintained 
so  earnestly,  is  the  same  as  that  supported  by  all  who 
care  for  the  honour  of  Him  whom  they  worship,  namely, 
that  in  proportion  as  the  idea  of  God  rises  to  the 
highest  pitch  of  mental  and  moral  excellence  it  deserves 
the  adoration  of  mankind,  and  only  in  proportion  as 
it  does  so  rise,  do  all  the  attacks  of  honest  doubters 
and  all  the  scandals  of  false  defenders  fall  off  to  the 
right  hand  and  the  left.  "  Tell  me  what  is  Thy  name 
is  therefore  the  question  which  in  some  form  we  must 
urge;  and  it  is  a  question  which  we  will  proceed  to 
answer  as  best  we  can  from  the  general  drift  of  the 
Bible  itself. 

R 


242  SERMONS.— NEW  YORK.  [viil 

The  first  answer  that  we  find  in  the  Scriptures  is  that 
name  which  in  our  English  version  we  translate  "  God." 
The  word  used  in  the  original  text  is  "  El,"  "  Elohim," 
the  Strong  One,  the  Strong  Ones,  the  Almighty  One. 
It  is  full  of  force.  It  is  from  the  same  root  which 
expresses  in  Hebrew  the  strength  of  the  mighty  forest 
bull,  the  strength  of  the  ancient  oak.  It  expresses 
that  behind  all  this  fluctuating,  moving,  shifting  scene, 
behind  all  these  waverings  and  weaknesses,  there  is  One 
who  is  as  it  were  "the  hero"  (this  is  one  meaning  which 
the  word  involves),  the  mighty  champion  on  whom 
we  can  depend  as  we  should  upon  an  impregnable 
fortress,  an  inaccessible  rock,  which  remains  after  all 
around  has  perished  or  is  perishing — "my  Castle,  my 
Fortress,  my  Deliverer."  This  is  the  first  name  by 
which  the  Unknown  is  called.  Even  without  going 
further  it  is  a  consoling,  invigorating  thought :  the 
forces  of  the  universe  gathered,  as  it  were,  into  one 
focus,  the  bone  and  sinew  of  the  world  sustaining,  as 
on  an  unshaken  basis,  the  whole  fabric  of  nature  and 
of  man.  It  is  the  same  word  as  "Allah,"  which  in  the 
religion  of  Islam  has  produced  the  deepest  sense  of 
the  presence  of  God  that  perhaps  the  world  has  ever 
witnessed.  Those  who  have  seen  the  Arab  Mussulman 
absorbed  in  his  devotions  at  sunr'/se  or  at  sunset,  undis- 


viii.]  THE  NATURE  OF  GOD. 


243 


turbed,  unmoved,  amidst  the  distractions  of  pleasure, 
business,  conversation,  will  feel  that  the  absolute  sub- 
mission, resignation,  and  awe  which  this  apprehension 
of  the  Divine  nature  creates  is  in  itself  a  moral  strength. 
"God  is  Great."  It  is  a  doctrine  which  may  lend  itself 
to  speculative  fatalism  and  to  practical  lethargy ;  but  it 
is  a  faith  which  cannot  be  despised  either  as  barren  or 
as  superstitious. 

Still  the  soul  kept  on  asking,  and  another  name 
was  revealed,  if  not  first  to  Moses,  yet  through  him 
first  clearly,  the  name  called  in  the  Hebrew,  "  Jehovah," 
by  us  translated  "the  Lord,"  but  which  is  faithfully 
preserved  only  in  the  French  version  of  the  Bible,  in 
this  respect  far  superior  to  all  other  ancient  or  modern 
translations,  as  "  the  Eternal."  That  is  the  name  which 
expresses  to  us  the  self-existence,  the  unchangeable 
simplicity  and  unity  which  is  not  to  be  represented 
in  any  outward  form.  The  strength,  the  power,  might 
be,  and  was  set  forth  in  all  the  different  shapes  of' 
sacred  stone  and  sacred  tree  and  sacred  animal.  But 
the  Eternal  is  not  these.  Eternity,  whatever  it  be,  is 
something  deeper  and  vaster;  it  is  that  aspect,  that 
face  of  Divine  nature  which  to  the  heathen  was  so 
difficult  to  conceive,  but  which  to  the  Israelite  became 
part   of  his   daily  life.    When  the  Roman  historian 

R  2 


~44 


SERMONS. 


-NEW  YORK. 


[VIII. 


described  the  peculiarity  of  the  Jewish  worship  he 
deemed  it  a  marvel  that  "  they  had  no  image,  no 
likeness  in  their  innermost  shrine.  It  was  an  empty 
sanctuary  in  which  they  bowed  down  before  the  Ever- 
lasting, the  Unchangeable,  the  Invisible."  This  was 
the  second  name  by  which  the  Divine  Being  was 
known.  It  was  the  death-blow  of  a  thousand  super- 
stitions. It  was,  and  is,  the  attraction  which  draws 
the  human  spirit  upwards  from  earth  into  the  depths 
and  heights  of  Infinite  Greatness. 

Time  still  rolled  on  and  there  was  another  name 
which  the  Israelite  gave  to  this  great  Invisible 
Lord.  When  the  wandering  tribe  was  turned  into  a 
settled  kingdom,  when  the  rude  hut  and  movable 
tabernacle  were  exchanged  for  the  solid  temple ; 
when  poetry,  and  science,  and  music,  and  military 
pomp,  and  statesman-like  skill,  grew  up  under  the 
fostering  care  of  David  and  Solomon,  then  the  name 
of  "the  Eternal"  had  to  become  the  bond  and  centre 
of  all  those  forces  of  earthly  civilisation ;  and  when 
the  ark  approached  its  final  resting-place  in  Jerusalem, 
and  when  the  warders  on  the  ancient  towers,  like  Jacob 
asked  what  was  the  name  of  the  new  Divine  Comer — 
"Tell  us  thy  name.  Who  is  this  King  of  Glory?"—  it 
was  not  enough  that  they  should  be  told,  as  were  the 


VIII.] 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOD. 


245 


older  patriarchs,  that  He  was  strong  and  mighty  in  battle, 
or  that  He  was  the  Eternal.  The  new  name  by  which 
He  was  henceforth  to  be  called,  and  was  throughout  the 
Jewish  monarchy  called,  was  "Jehovah  Sabaoth,"  that 
is,  the  Eternal,  who  is  the  leader  and  the  centre  of  the 
hosts  of  heaven  and  the  hosts  of  earth.  The  invisible 
Guide  of  human  history,  the  invisible  Master  of  human 
characters,  translated  in  the  Greek,  both  in  the  Old 
and  the  New  Testament,  "  Pantocrator,"  the  Ruler  of 
principalities,  and  powers,  and  dominions.  The  Eternal 
self-existence  was  not  brought  down  to  man,  but  man, 
with  all  the  countless  energies  of  his  heart  and  intellect, 
was  drawn  up  towards  Him.  The  soul  of  the  royal 
Psalmist  saw  more  clearly  into  the  face  of  God  even 
than  Jacob  on  the  heights  of  Peniel,  or  Moses  on  the 
top  of  Horeb.  If  Socrates  brought  down  philosophy 
from  heaven  to  earth,  David  in  this  new  name  lifted 
up  earth  to  heaven. 

But  still,  we  ask,  what  was  there  even  behind  the 
name  of  the  Eternal  One,  the  name  of  the  Eternal 
Lord  of  Hosts?  There  was  always,  even  from  the 
first,  an  impression,  deepening  with  the  voice  of  each 
succeeding  prophet,  that  this  Strength,  this  Eternity, 
ran  ever  in  one  direction,  that  the  one  sight  on  earth 
which  attracted  the  gracious  smile  of  that  ever  present 


246  SERMONS.— NEW  YORK.  [vm. 

countenance  was  the  righteousness, '  the  moral  perfec- 
tion of  man.  "The  countenance  of  the  Eternal  is 
against  them  which  do  evil."  "Thou  art  good  and 
doest  good."  "Keeping  mercy  for  thousands;  and 
that  will  by  no  means  clear  the  guilty."  "The 
Eternal  is  our  righteousness."  More  and  more  the 
Eternal  One  came  to  be  known  as  the  Holy  One ; 
the  Strong  One  came  to  be  known  as  the  Righteous 
One.  It  was  these  indications  that  led  the  spirit  of 
the  chosen  people  forward  in  their  approach  to  the 
Divine,  as  they  drew  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  hour 
when,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  the  day  should  break 
and  the  shadows  flee  away.  More  and  more,  as  that 
hour  approached,  the  older  names  seemed  to  fail;  the 
word  which  comforted  Moses  and  David,  the  name  of 
Jehovah,  ceased  to  be  pronounced.  Silence  gathered 
over  that  sacred  name.  Not  only  was  the  Holy  of 
Holies  vacant,  but  the  sacred  letters  of  the  Holy  Name 
itself  came  to  be  void  of  meaning.  At  last  the  moment 
came  when  another  and  yet  another  name  should 
be  given,  as  much  greater  than  the  "  Eternal "  as  that 
had  been  greater  than  the  "Strong"  and  the  "Mighty." 
The  long  struggle  of  the  human  spirit  with  the  mystery 
of  the  Divine  nature  was  drawing  to  its  end.  The 
closing   words    of   the    profound    hymn    of  Charles 


viii.]  THE  NATURE  OF  GOD. 


=  47 


Wesley  fitly  express  the  conclusion  of  the  whole 
matter : 

Yield  to  me  now,  for  I  am  weak, 

But  confident  in  self-despair. 
Speak  to  me  here,  in  blessings  speak, 

Be  conquered  by  my  instant  prayer. 

My  prayer  hath  power  with  God  ;  the  grace 
Unspeakable  I  now  receive  ; 

Through  faith  I  see  Thee  face  to  face ; 
In  vain  I  have  not  wept  and  strove, 
Thy  nature  and  Thy  name  is  "Love." 

So  it  is.  There  are  in  the  New  Testament  a  few — 
a  very  few— direct  definitions  of  the  Divine  nature. 
And  they  all  occur  in  the  writings  of  the  latest  oracle 
of  the  Apostolic  age,  whose  title  and  whose  date  may 
be  fairly  questioned,  but  whose  profound  insight  into 
these  problems  cannot  be  denied.  He  has  not  told 
us  that  God  is  the  Universe  j  he  has  not  told  us 
that  God  was  a  man  like  ourselves.  He  did  not  side 
with  the  upholders  either  of  the  personality  or  the 
impersonality  of  the  Divine  Being.  In  St.  John's 
definitions  what  we  are  told  is,  that  "  God  is  Spirit." 
We  are  told  also  that  "God  is  Light."  But  we  are  most 
emphatically  and  repeatedly  told  that  "God  is  Love." 
It  is  a  definition  which  has  never  been  re-asserted  in 
any  creed;  but  it  is  a  definition  which  encourages  us 


248  SERMONS.— NEW  YORK.  [vilL 


to  take  so  hopeful  a  view  of  the  Supreme  governance 
of  the  world  as  to  say  that  the  expression  of  the 
Supreme  mind,  whatever  else  it  might  be,  strength, 
eternity,  wisdom,  righteousness,  is  above  all  else,  Love 
or  Charity.  "God  is  Love,"  or  as  the  Latin  phrase  goes, 
"  God  is  Charity."  The  same  Evangelist  has  told  us 
"  no  man  has  seen  God  at  any  time."  From  this 
he  never  goes  back.  But  he,  and  they  who  were  with 
him,  in  that  climax  and  crisis  of  the  religious  history  of 
mankind,  had  received  a  new  impression  of  the  Divine 
nature,  and  there  could  be  no  question  for  them,  as 
there  can  be  no  question  for  us,  that  the  prevailing 
expression  of  the  countenance  which  they  beheld  beside 
the  Lake  of  Galilee,  and  from  the  Cross  of  Calvary  was 
"  Love."  In  that  human  face  they  felt  that  they  had 
seen  the  face  of  God,  and  their  life  was  preserved.  And 
this  declaration  that  God  is  Love,  as  it  is  the  last  and 
greatest  of  all  theological  definitions,  gives  just  meaning 
to  all  the  others.  It  expresses  the  source  of  the  strength 
of  the  Divine  nature,  gives  harmony  to  the  idea  of 
the  Eternal.  It  supplies  the  bond  of  perfectness  by 
which  the  Eternal  is  connected  with  the  onward  course 
of  human  history.  This  then  is  the  definition  of  the 
Face  or  Countenance  of  God.  It  is  founded  on  the 
belief  that  Goodness  is  the  essence  of  the  Divine  nature. 


vili.]  THE  NATURE  OF  GOD. 


249 


In  that  prayer  of  Savonarola,  which  I  before  quoted, 
he  thus  pours  forth  in  the  midst  of  his  distress  his 
ultimate  confidence  :  "  Thou  God  art  whatever  Thou  art 
in  Thyself— for  Thou  art  Thine  own  wisdom,  Thine  own 
goodness,  Thine  own  power ;  and,  above  all  else,  art 
merciful.  What  art  Thou  but  mercy  and  love?  Thou 
canst  not  depart  from  Thine  own  nature.  Deep  calls  to 
deep.  The  deep  of  misery  calls  to  the  deep  of  mercy. 
May  the  deep  of  mercy  swallow  up  the  deep  of  misery. 
Have  mercy  upon  me,  not  according  to  the  mercy  of 
men,  which  is  small,  but  according  to  the  mercy  of 
God,  which  is  great,  which  is  infinite."  So,  in  his  last 
extremity,  when  deserted  by  friends,  and  trampled 
down  by  enemies,  prayed  the  reformer  and  martyr; 
so  may  pray  every  true  philosopher,  every  true  saint- 
may  we  not  say,  every  humble  sinner  ? 

But  there  is  still  one  more  question  that  may  be 
asked.  What  is  the  personal  familiar  name  by  which 
we  are  to  call  this  Fountain  of  all  Goodness?  Once 
more  we  ask,  "Tell  me  Thy  name?"  Give  us  some 
word  by  which  that  face,  that  name  of  Love,  may 
be  endeared  to  us,  may  be  made,  so  to  speak,  to 
smile,  to  support,  to  guide  us.  How  and  by  what 
method  shall  we  arrive  at  this  more  direct  application? 
The  Greek  philosophers,  the  Jewish  prophets,  even 


250 


SERMONS.— NEW  YORK. 


[via 


the  Christian  apostles,  had  done  what  they  could  to 
Refine  the  nature  of  the  Invisible.  The  name,  which 
by  them  had  not  been  discovered,  was  reserved  for  One 
higher  than  any  of  them. 

There  was  a  story  once  told  to  me  by  an  American 
Presbyterian  minister  in  the  Jerusalem  Chamber  at 
Westminster,  that  the  assembly  of  Westminster  divines, 
when  they  were  there  engaged  in  drawing  up  the 
Confession  of  Faith,  and  when  they  came  to  the 
question  of  making  a  definition  of  the  Supreme  Being, 
found  the  difficulty  so  overwhelming  that  they  proposed 
to  have  a  special  prayer  offered  up  for  light.  The 
youngest  minister  present  was  to  undertake  the  office. 
It  was,  according  to  the  English  tradition,  Calamy, 
according  to  the  Scottish  tradition,  Gillespie.  He  rose 
up  in  the  assembly,  and  he  began  his  prayer  by  an 
impassioned  and  elaborate  invocation  of  the  Almighty, 
which  he  had  hardly  uttered,  when  the  whole  assembly 
broke  out  into  the  exclamation;  ''This  shall  be  our  defi- 
nition !"  The  definition  may  still  be  read  as  the  open- 
ing of  the  third  article  of  the  Westminster  Confession. 
It  is  an  example  of  that  curious  union  of  metaphysical 
and  devotional  language  in  which  the  Puritan  divines 
excelled.  But  it  is  not  to  recommend  this  special 
definition  of  the  Westminster  divines  that  I  have  cited 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOD.  251 

this  story.  It  is  rather  to  say  that  what  by  a  natural 
impulse  seemed  to  them  the  only  method  of  extricating 
themselves  from  their  difficulty  has  been  the  solution 
which  the  Christian  world,  we  may  almost  say  the 
human  race  itself,  has  chosen  in  the  midst  of  this 
great  inquiry.  If  we  still  ask,  "Tell  me  Thy  name? 
Give  me  some  name  by  which  that  face,  that  name 
of  Love,  may  be  made  to  speak,  and  smile,  and  guide 
us,"  this  last  blessed  name  is  made  known  to  us 
in  Prayer — in  the  best  of  all  prayers,  in  the  opening 
of  the  One  Prayer  which  has,  beyond  any  other 
formulary  or  creed,  been  translated  into  all  the 
languages,  and  adopted  by  all  the  civilised  nations 
of  the  earth.  Not  by  metaphysical  definitions,  but  in  the 
natural  uplifting  of  the  spirits  of  all  mankind  to  God 
in  the  Lord's  Prayer  is  the  name  given  in  which  we 
all  most  gladly  acquiesce,  and  to  which  we  all  most 
gladly  cling — "  Our  Father  who  art  in  Heaven." 
"  Our  Father."  It  is  a  name  contained  twice  or  thrice 
in  the  Old  Testament.  It  is  a  name  found  here  and 
there  in  the  Talmud.  It  is  a  name  not  altogether 
unknown  to  the  old  Gentile  world.  But  it  was 
only  through  its  consecration  in  the  mouth  of  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord  that  it  became  the  name  which  has 
superseded  all  other  names,  and  has  remained  ever 


252 


SERMONS.— NEW  YORK. 


[VIII. 


since— the  name  of  the  God  of  Christendom,  who  is 
the  God  of  all  the  world.  The  Father;  Our  Father. 
That  is  the  great  name  of  the  Supreme,  a  name  as 
much  greater  than  the  Strong,  or  the  Eternal,  or  the 
Lord  of  Hosts,  as  He  who  revealed  it  is  greater  than 
Abraham,  Moses,  or  David.  Thus,  then,  "the  Face 
of  God "  to  us  is  His  love,  love  in  spite  of  all  the 
contradictions  which  cross  and  perplex  our  path  of 
life.  "The  Name  of  God"  to  us  is  our  Father;  the 
love,  compassion,  far-reaching  watchful  care  of  the 
most  venerable  figure  which  each  of  us  individually 
has  known  on  earth,  is  the  likeness  which  brings 
before  us  the  love,  the  compassion,  the  watchful  care 
of  the  Ruler  of  the  Universe.  This  is  the  last  reve- 
lation of  the  Being  of  God. 

This  is  the  name  which  has  always  conveyed  the 
deepest  comfort  to  the  human  soul  in  all  its  per- 
plexities. "/  do  not  know  how  the  great  loving 
Father  will  bring  out  light  at  last,  but  He  knows,  and 
will  do  it !"  That  was  David  Livingstone's  consolation 
in  the  wilds  of  Africa,  and  that  may  be  ours  also  in 
all  our  toils  and  trials.  For  the  ideal  of  a  father  is 
the  impersonation  of  supreme  love,  which  is  the 
essence  of  supreme  goodness. 

And  if  we  yet  further  ask  how  this  name  of  the 


VIII.] 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOD. 


2  55 


Father,  whom  no  man  hath  seen  or  can  see,  is  borne 
in  upon  our  souls,  it  is  in  two  aspects,  in  two  modes, 
which  we  can  all  understand,  and  which  the  whole 
world  has  felt.  "  Lord,  show  us  the  Father,"  we  cry, 
"and  it  sufficeth  us."  And  the  answer  is:  "He  that 
hath  seen,  he  that  hath  heard,  and  he  that  hath  read 
of  Jesus  Christ,  hath  seen,  and  heard,  and  read  of 
the  Father."  In  that  manifestation  of  Divine  Love, 
in  that  visible  representation  of  the  best  perfections  of 
Humanity,  which  was  made  in  the  image  of  God,  we 
have  the  best  likeness  of  the  Strong,  the  Eternal,  the 
Holy,  to  correct,  and  guide,  and  strengthen  the 
representations  of  nature.  And  yet  once  more,  there 
is  the  voice  of  God,  the  likeness  of  God,  the  breath  of 
God,  which  speaks  in  our  own  consciences,  which 
dwells  in  our  own  hearts,  which  inspires  our  best 
thoughts.  That  same  Apostle  who  taught  us  that 
God  is  Love,  has  taught  us  that  "  God  is  a  Spirit," 
and  "  Hereby  know  we  that  we  dwell  in  God,  because 
He  has  given  us  of  His  Spirit."  The  Spirit  which  in 
our  highest  moments  moves  with  our  spirits,  is  the  Love 
which  is  alike  the  innermost  Spirit  of  the  Universal 
Father,  and  the  Love  which  is  the  innermost  Spirit  of  the 
Divine  Man,  Christ  Jesus.  This  is  the  full  Face — this  is 
the  final  mode  of  declaring  the  name  of  God. 


SERMONS.— NEW  YORK.  [vm. 


And  now  let  me  say  one  parting  word  to  those 
who  perchance  will  never  hear  me  again.  I  have 
done  my  best  to  explain  the  name  of  God ;  but 
neither  this  explanation,  nor  any  other,  "will  be  of  any 
avail  unless  it  makes  us  feel  how  serious  and  solemn 
a  thing  it  is  to  believe  that  we  are  in  the  hands  of 
One  to  whom  nothing  is  so  precious  as  goodness, 
to  whom  nothing  is  so  hateful  as  sin.  Religious 
feeling,  religious  doctrine,  religious  ordinances  are 
of  no  value  unless  they  produce  in  our  lives  justice, 
integrity,  honesty,  purity,  gentleness,  modesty.  These 
are  the  means  by  which  the  name  of  God  is  honoured 
amongst  men.  You  who  have  still  your  way  to  make  in 
the  world,  remain  stedfast  to  this  thought.  You  may 
have  many  difficulties,  many  perplexities,  but  remember 
that  so  long  as  you  believe  that  God  is  just,  so  long  as 
you  know  that  the  best  mode  of  serving  him  is  to  be  like 
Jesus  Christ  in  the  goodness  and  truthfulness  of  His 
character,  so  long  you  have  enough  for  your  religious 
guidance.  On  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  it  is  equally 
true  that  a  serious,  stedfast,  upright  walk  of  life  is  the 
one  thing  needful  to  commend  us  in  the  sight  of  the 
All  Holy  and  the  All  Wise.  May  He  through  His 
Spirit  strengthen  you,  and  may  you  strengthen  your 
own  spirits,  in  this  endeavour  !    May  He  guard  you,  and 


VIII.]  THE  NATURE  OF  GOD.  255 

may  you  guard  yourselves  against  the  manifold  tempta- 
tions to  evil  in  this  great  city!  May  He  give  you  grace 
to  know  and  love,  whether  in  man,  woman,  or  child, 
whatsoever  things  are  true,  and  honest,  and  just,  and 
pure,  and  lovely,  and  of  good  report  1 


VME  ENB. 


DATE  DUE 


DCC  1  Q 

DEMCO  38-297 


mm 


